When the Victory Follows You
This Sunday is Easter—the heart of the Christian story. Over the past forty days, we’ve journeyed through Lent, a season meant to slow us down, draw our eyes to the cross, and tune our hearts to the rhythms of repentance, hope, and grace. I wish I could say I’ve been fully present in it. Truth is, I’ve been more distracted than usual this year.
Work has been busy. Weekends have been packed with events. And in the whirlwind of it all, my Lenten intentions often fell to the background. Maybe you’ve felt that too—a tension between the holy and the ordinary, between what we know matters most and the pull of our everyday obligations.
But even still, Holy Week comes.
This week is the most important week of the year for us as Christians. It doesn’t wait for us to be fully prepared or perfectly attentive. It simply comes, like grace often does—steady, unearned, and full of power. Holy Week beckons us to pause and reflect on the finished work of Christ: His life, death, and resurrection. What we remember this week is unlike any other event in human history.
Yes, other historical events have shaped the world. They’ve sparked revolutions, changed borders, shifted culture, and altered the course of history. But none of them—none—reach through time quite like the work of Christ.
Because Christ’s work didn’t just happen. It happens. It is happening.
This is one of the deep mysteries of our faith: that Christ’s death and resurrection, though they occurred at a particular moment in time, are not bound by time. They echo into the past, reach into the present, and extend into the future. His death on the cross didn’t just forgive the sins of those standing at the foot of Calvary—it forgives sins today. Right now. Yours. Mine. And it will continue to forgive in the days ahead.
His work justifies sinners today and actively transforms the lives of believers. And it’s not just an abstract truth we think about—it’s embodied, lived, and experienced in the life of the Church, especially in the Eucharist.
In the Mass, we don’t merely remember the Paschal Mystery—we enter into it. Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice becomes mysteriously and beautifully present to us. Grace flows from the cross into the chalice. The veil of time is pulled back, and the Lamb who was slain stands before us, offering Himself again—not as a new sacrifice, but as the same, eternal, victorious gift.
And the victory keeps moving forward.
The cross of Christ is not only a past triumph—it is our future hope. One day, He will come again. One day, death will be swallowed up in victory. One day, every tear will be wiped away. The same Christ who bore our grief will remove it entirely. The same One who conquered death will destroy it forever.
This is the good news of Easter. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
And in the meantime, His faithfulness follows us. His presence remains with us. His victory is not behind us—it walks beside us, it lives in us, it moves through the Church and into the world.
This week, even if your Lent was messy, even if distractions won more days than discipline—know this: Christ is still faithful. The resurrection still came. The cross still stands. And the work He began is still at work in you.
We celebrate that truth this Easter Sunday—but we carry it with us every day.
Thanks be to God.
