As we approach the holiest days of the Christian year - Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter, collectively known as the Sacred Triduum - we have the opportunity once again to reflect on why Jesus gave his life for us. Those of us who are familiar with the Gospel might simply reply, “to save us from our sins,” but this mystery deserves a deeper reflection. How does the death of Jesus really save us? The mystery of our redemption by Jesus can be examined from many angles, but I'd like to focus on one key aspect: Jesus' trusting surrender to God's mysterious will makes up for our mistrust.

When Adam and Eve sinned against God, they did so because they didn't fully trust God. Did God really have their best interest in mind when he told them not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Tricked into believing that God was keeping something good from them, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and sin and death entered humanity. Distrust was the root of their disobedience:

Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God's command. This is what man's first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness (Catechism of the Catholic Church 397).

Every sin - like the sin of Adam and Eve - is rooted in a lack of trust in God's goodness. Our world, tainted by original sin, is now plagued with suffering and death, which makes it even harder for us to believe that God is really good and is working for our good. Does the God who allows so much evil in our lives and in the world really want what's best for us? This God tells us “Thou shalt not,” but we often decide that we'd be happier if we just set aside his commandments to do what we want. When we sin, it's because we doubt that the path the Lord has set before us is really the one that will lead to our fulfillment.

Jesus, on the other hand, undid the disobedience of Adam by his own radical surrender to the Father's will, even in the midst of our broken world. To Jesus' earliest disciples - and perhaps to some of us - the Father's plan for Jesus seemed absurd: Jesus was to go to the holy city of Jerusalem, where he'd be rejected by the Jewish leaders, handed over to the Romans, and put to death on a Cross. How could this suffering be the plan of a loving God? Was this really what was best?

Rather than resisting the path that the Father set before him, Jesus embraced it with wholehearted trust. As the hour of his crucifixion approached, he said, “I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name” (John 12:27-28). Jesus' final words on the Cross expressed his complete surrender to the Father's plan: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46).

After accepting this death at the hand of sinners, Jesus was raised in glory and is now seated at the right hand of the Father. Out of the greatest evil - the murder of the Son of God - God brought the greatest good - eternal life for humanity.

When some suffering comes our way, it's easy to begin to doubt that God wants what's best for us, but the Resurrection of Jesus reassures us that God is always able to bring good out of our suffering. Each of the sufferings that we experience in life are in some mysterious way part of God's perfect plan. As the New Testament teaches, God makes everything work for the good for those who love him (Romans 8:28). St. Catherine of Siena said to “those who are scandalized and rebel against what happens to them”: “Everything comes from love, all is ordained for the salvation of man, God does nothing without this goal in mind” (see Catechism 313).

Because Jesus has given us a share in his own grace, we too have been empowered not only to follow God's commandments, but even to surrender to the “crosses” of our own lives. Rather than bemoaning the afflictions that we have to endure, we can take St. Peter's advice: “Beloved, do not be surprised that a trial by fire is occurring among you, as if something strange were happening to you. But rejoice to the extent that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice exultantly” (1 Peter 4:13). I'll close with the following challenging, profound quote from St. Elizabeth of the Trinity:

Rejoice in the thought that from all eternity we have been known by the Father, as St. Paul says, and that He wishes to find once again in us the image of His crucified Son [cf. Romans 8:29], Oh, if you knew how necessary suffering is so God's work can be done in the soul .... God has an immense desire to enrich us with his graces, but it is we who determine the amount to the extent that we know how to let ourselves be immolated by Him, immolated in joy, in thanks giving, like the Master, saying with Him: “Am I not to drink the cup my Father has prepared for me?” [cf. John 18:11] The Master called the hour of His passion “His hour” [Jn 12:27], the one He had come for, the one He invoked with all His desire! When a great suffering or some very little sacrifice is offered to us, oh, let us think very quickly that “this is our Hour,” the hour when we are going to prove our love for Him who has “loved us exceedingly” ... [cf. Ephesians 2:4] (Complete Works, vol. two, L308 - to her mother)