Less than four months after the successful Allied D-Day landing on the beaches of Normandy, Operation Market Garden drove ground forces through occupied Netherlands and, with the help of British and American paratroopers, seized a number of bridges along the way—and ultimately battled for the Arnhem bridge over the Rhine into Germany. It was an ambitious plan, carried out bravely, with battles won and lives lost. But its goal, capturing the Rhine’s bridge into Germany, was unsuccessful. It was, as one British general feared, “a bridge too far.”

Lent’s battle for the paschal bridge appears equally ambitious. We are in a life-and-death struggle—a “stupendous combat” (Easter Sequence). Our victory lies on the other side of an arduous climb (“the Holy mountain of Easter,” Paschalis Sollemnitatis, 6). We are bombarded at every moment with the deadly temptation to succumb, to wonder if we, too, are attempting a bridge too far, with the Devil constantly standing in our way. Spanning the abyss of hell is dangerous work, and the stakes are never higher than during Lent’s lead-up to Easter.

Yet we have a Captain leading our division against the opposing legions. Indeed, He has done, and continues to do, the majority of the bridge-securing work. He knows what He is doing and where He is going with the perfect battle plan. As we will eventually pray after Easter during the Mass for the Ascension of the Lord, “where the Head has gone before in glory, the Body is called to follow in hope.”¹ In addition to our Captain, a heavenly host of angels and an army of victorious saints accompany us, allied in our fight and flanking us on either side. We are also equipped by the Church with “weapons of self-restraint” (as the Opening Prayer for Ash Wednesday says), with fasting, with almsgiving, with prayer, and—perhaps most important—with the sacraments and sacramentals.

Ours is not a bridge too far—if we follow the plan laid out for us by the Church during Lent and, especially, during Holy Week. Christ and the members of his Mystical Body, aided by our self-discipline and sacramental weapons, will help us win through to the end. Let’s look at each of these combat-ready components of the liturgy generally and how they appear during Lent.

Angels, Saints, and Sinners

Jesus truly is my personal Lord and Savior, but He fulfills this role in a corporate capacity, since He came to serve all and has made us each related to one another through him. Each of us is an individual cell of a larger corpus, or body, the Mystical Body. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle recognized that man by nature is a social animal. Christian faith recognizes the same truth: individuals are born into a body and are saved as members of a body. Thus, we can rely on several communities to help us reach salvation—the hierarchy of angels, the Communion of Saints, and our own sacred society here on earth.

As for the first of these, the angels, as purely spiritual creatures, possess minds and wills and constantly behold the face of God, worshiping him, honoring him, and serving him. They possess an extraordinary track record as God’s commandos in the field. In the Old Covenant, for example, “they closed the earthly paradise; protected Lot; saved Hagar and her child; stayed Abraham’s hand; communicated the law by their ministry; led the People of God; announced births and callings; and assisted the prophets” (CCC, 332).² But their work continued into the New Testament as well, bringing great tidings to the shepherds and Mary and even poor, dumbfounded Zechariah, St. John the Baptist’s father. Fortunately for us, they also show up for regular duty throughout Lent, in the same way they came to Christ’s aid during his forty days in the desert. We hear in the Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent that after Jesus resists the Devil’s three temptations, “angels came and ministered to him” (Matthew 4:11; Mark 1:13). At Lent’s end, the Church recounts how an angel appears to strengthen Christ in his agony in the garden (see Luke 22:43).

Saints also accompany Jesus during his earthly journey to the Paschal Mystery, just as they support us during our liturgical celebration of the same mystery. His parents, for one, were particularly holy. For example, Mary, who, following the announcement by Gabriel (another angel!), offered her fiat and ushered in a new creation, is the pinnacle of human holiness. Likewise, the “just man” (see Matthew 1:19) Joseph was found worthy and thus chosen by God to wed Mary and to guard and protect the incarnate Son of God. We can’t forget Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, whom the Lord proclaimed to be “the greatest ever born of women” (see Matthew 11:11; Luke 7:28). The apostles, too, served as dependable aides-de-camp for Christ during his mission on earth. Despite their slow learning (see Matthew 13:36; Luke 24:25), human weakness, and alternate bouts of fear and rashness in the face of danger, these twelve men served as supreme confidants of Christ. As saints in the making, they should remind us of ourselves, and after Pentecost they should inspire us to be men and women with a passion for mission. Moses and Elijah, as we’ve already seen, also appear in cameos to “game-plan” with Jesus on Mount Tabor. Such a cast of supporting Gospel characters shows that holy people radiate God and thus show the way to heavenly brilliance.

But even those not yet perfectly holy—those of us struggling along the way—are a constant support to each other. In this world, the Church will always be a mixed bag of saints and sinners—but mostly sinners. Our mutual assistance should be a great comfort for us, just as it was for Jesus, as we travel with others in the Mystical Body. Indeed, liturgically speaking, we form a bond with our fellow pilgrims and, as the Catechism notes, “in the celebration of the sacraments it is thus the whole assembly that is leitourgos, each according to his function, but in the ‘unity of the Spirit’ who acts in all” (CCC, 1144). Every man, woman, and child is enlisted as a unified army in retaking the paschal bridge. No one who is successful goes it alone.

Penance: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving

Now let’s look at some of the most effective weapons at our disposal during our Lenten battle. The Opening Prayer for Ash Wednesday makes clear the struggle opening before us, as well as the means to win through to the end. The priest prays: “Grant, O Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting this campaign of Christian service, so that, as we take up battle against spiritual evils, we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint.”³ Why will fasting and self-restraint serve us as sacred weapons as we push to the Paschal Mystery? Once again, we look to Jesus. The Lenten liturgy recounts how Christ’s saving work begins with fasting and prayer. On the First Sunday of Lent, we hear that “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry” (Matthew 4:1–2; Luke 4:1–2). Returning to Mass for Ash Wednesday, we hear the Church recall the prophet Joel’s prescription to return to God “with fasting, and weeping, and mourning” in its First Reading (Joel 2:12), only to listen to Jesus elaborate on the penitential practices of prayer and fasting in the Gospel (Matthew 6:1–6, 16–18). Thus, as Jesus has done, so we do.

The Christian’s three principal penitential practices, especially during Lent, are fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, “which express conversion in relation to oneself [i.e., fasting], to God [prayer], and others [almsgiving]” (CCC, 1434). But the Church offers many more ways of expressing interior penance, including: “efforts at reconciliation with one’s neighbor, tears of repentance, concern for the salvation of one’s neighbor, the intercession of the saints, and the practice of charity, …gestures of reconciliation, concern for the poor, the exercise and defense of justice and right (cf. Amos 5:24; Isaiah 1:17), …the admission of faults to one’s brethren, fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience, spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution for the sake of righteousness” (CCC, 1434–1435).

The Catechism also includes the surest way of penance: “Taking up one’s cross each day and following Jesus,” as well as reading Scripture, and praying the Liturgy of the Hours and the Lord’s Prayer (CCC, 1435, 1437). These penitential acts and many more besides serve as effective means by which man defends himself and gains ground in the battle against Satan. It may be strange to think that we have the ability to go on the offensive against the Devil, but as our discussion that follows will show, penance allied to the sacraments serve as a one-two punch to the diabolical. There are, in other words, a multitude of penitential practices to punish the legion of demons who stand in the way of our taking heaven’s gate.

Sacraments and Sacramentals

Curiously enough, the Catechism also includes the Eucharist as a means of penance, “for in it is made present the sacrifice of Christ which has reconciled us with God” (CCC, 1436). Of course, the most obvious weapon at hand is the sacrament of penance, a particularly privileged means to encounter Christ and receive his forgiveness and saving grace. Both the sacrament of the Eucharist and the sacrament of penance throw the enemy into retreat mode.

Spiritual battle is largely a matter of ballistics training, for as Christians we have within our grasp those things we can hurl before the enemy to clear our path to holiness. Ballistic finds its origin in the Greek root ballein, which means “to hurl, toss, or throw,” and it is a word that has landed in our Christian vocabulary in several ways. For instance, the Devil “is the one who ‘throws himself across’ God’s plan and his work of salvation accomplished in Christ”—he is dia-bolos (CCC, 2851). But we ought not to fear, because the Greek word also shows up in the term for exorcism in the New Testament: Christ himself will “throw the Devil out”—ex ballein. And this same power to cast out the diabolical and win heaven shows up in a third example, the sacraments, which are a type of supernatural symbol that “throws together”—sym-ballein—heaven and earth in sensible signs.

With all these ballistics careening around in Scripture, however, it is most important to remember that the Paschal Christ, his Mystical Body of angels, saints, and sinners, and our own expressions of interior penance all exist today sacramentally. That is, each of these otherwise invisible and undetectable realities are “thrown together”—symbolized—in what can be seen, heard, felt, smelt, and tasted. That the sacraments come to us in such a human way, though, is no accident, for our present age, occurring after the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and before Christ’s Second Coming, is called “the Age of the Church.” In this age, the Catechism explains, “Christ now lives and acts in and with his Church, in a new way appropriate to this new age. He acts through the sacraments” (1076).

The first “sacrament” of his presence, however, is not one of the seven we find in our catechism; rather, it—quite literally—embodies all of them: the Mystical Body. Invoking a prayer used during the Easter Vigil, the Second Vatican Council reminds us that “it was from the side of Christ as He slept the sleep of death upon the cross that there came forth ‘the wondrous sacrament of the whole Church.’”⁴ That is to say: as the first Adam lay sleeping in a garden and his side was opened and Eve, the mother of all the natural-born living, was taken forth, so now Jesus, the Second Adam, as he lies sleeping on a tree, has his side opened only to see emerge the Church, the mother of all of those born into a new supernatural life in Christ. For this reason, the Church is Jesus’ “sacrament” in this age, his Body in Mystery, carrying on his saving work of throwing together heaven and earth in symbolic sacraments.

But, as we’ve noted, the Mystical Body as the main sacrament of Christ doesn’t imply that we’ve thrown out the traditional seven sacraments. These, too, are filled with Jesus. Doctor of the Church St. Leo the Great (d. 461) tells us in a homily on Jesus’ Ascension that “our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments.”⁵ Another Doctor of the Church, St. Albert the Great (d. 1280), likened the Eucharist (and, by extension, the other sacraments) to the “the fruit of the tree of life”—that is, the Cross.⁶ Like the Mystical Body, then, the sacraments join Jesus to us, giving us his very life and power, for our journey into the Easter Mystery. The same is true in a lesser way when it comes to the Church’s sacramentals (e.g., blessed ashes, holy water, and palms) and her devotions (e.g., the Stations of the Cross). Even “sacramental things”—candles, words, church windows, feast days, bells, sacred music, vestments, liturgical colors—join us to Christ and his Church. Whether in the form of sacraments, sacramentals, or sacramental things, each of these symbols in its own way makes Christ’s paschal action present today so that “the faithful are enabled to lay hold upon them and become filled with saving grace.”⁷

As any Catholic well practiced in the liturgy knows, everything we’ve discussed so far—the saints, penitential practices, and sacraments—are present in the life of faith and its liturgical expression generally. But as our Lenten march through the desert draws to a close, we come to see how they truly come to life during the Holy Week liturgies, beginning with Palm Sunday.

Conclusion

In a series of radio broadcasts during the Second World War, C. S. Lewis described our world as “enemy-occupied territory,” and Christianity as “the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.”⁸ He has landed indeed, infiltrating Satan’s battle lines, and in his body—his “chariot,” as St. Ephrem said—he is on a mission to conquer hell and reclaim man and all creation for his Father.

Holy Week makes Christ’s saving mission present. Its liturgies are our chance to aid him as his soldiers. Following Christ, accompanied by his angels and saints, fortified by penance, and armed with sacramental signs, we battle with him unto his victory, and ours.

“Our pilgrimage on earth,” St. Augustine says, “cannot be exempt from trial. We progress by means of trial. No one knows himself except through trial, or receives a crown except after victory, or strives except against an enemy or temptations.”⁹ Christ’s enemy is engaged during Holy Week, and the battle against him is won at the zenith of the Paschal Triduum’s bridge.

The above text is an excerpt from Christopher Carstens’s A Devotional Journey into the Easter Mystery, available from Sophia Institute Press.

1. Roman Missal, Collect for the Ascension for the Mass during the day.
2. See Job 38:7 (where angels are called “sons of God”); Gen. 3:24; 19; 21:17; 22:11; Acts 7:53; Exod. 23:20–23; Judg. 13; 6:11–24; Isa. 6:6; 1 Kings 19:5.
3. Roman Missal, Collect for Ash Wednesday.
4. Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium (December 4, 1963), no. 5.
5. St. Leo the Great, Office of Readings for Friday, Easter Week VI, vol. II, 937.
6. St. Albert the Great, Office of Readings for November 15 (St. Albert’s feast day), vol. IV, 1560.
7. Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 102.
8. These broadcasts formed the basis of what he would later publish in his 1952 book, Mere Christianity (Westwood, NJ: Barbour, 1952). The quote here comes from page 40 of the text.
9. St. Augustine, Office of Readings for Sunday, Lent Week I, vol. II, 87.