What do the Triduum liturgies contain and reveal about the doctrine of redemption in connection to one's own suffering?

The Church provides an answer to the question of suffering in a variety of ways, but here the role of human suffering will be explored in connection to the three most holy, sacred days of the Liturgical Year – Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. Through this exploration of the Triduum liturgies, the place of human suffering, especially in its connection to the doctrine of redemption, will be explained in the lens of faith. The liturgies, as they guide believers through Jesus’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection, help to answer some of the deepest questions on human hearts. Each liturgy has something to offer a believer looking for answers for their suffering. Each liturgy allows believers to place their own sufferings into Jesus Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection, and examine how it impacts their lives.

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In order to explore how one’s own suffering connects to the Triduum liturgies, some background information on the doctrine of redemption is necessary. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in his work Introduction to Christianity, strives to give an overview of the Apostles’ Creed that is applicable to the modern reader. In his chapter titled “I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord,” Ratzinger argues that modern believers have an incomplete understanding as to what the doctrine of redemption actually entails, because they have an incomplete understanding of Jesus Christ. In order to understand Jesus Christ and his mission on Earth, Ratzinger writes, one has to consider these two truths together, “the question of how man and God could in Jesus be one . . . [and] what Jesus had really done and how the effect impinges on us.”  These two questions are known as the theology of the Incarnation and the theology of the Cross, respectively, which together form the basis for Christology, the study of Jesus Christ. When the two theologies are held together in tension, it is possible to get a clearer picture of who Jesus Christ is and what it means for humanity that the Son of God suffered and died on the cross for the salvation of souls.

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The doctrine of redemption entails both of these theologies, the theology of the Incarnation and the theology of the Cross. Humanity is saved because Jesus was fully God and fully man, and He suffered death and rose from the dead for the salvation of our souls. The Paschal Mystery finds its full meaning in the combination of these two theologies, as will become evident as the Triduum liturgies are explored. The liturgies during these holy days elucidate different aspects of the Paschal Mystery, Christology, the meaning of human suffering, the doctrine of redemption, and provide opportunities for believers to journey into deeper unity with God.