This past week, snow once again covered the city in a brilliant contradiction of the new season. It was a reminder that Easter is a celebration of the Resurrection of Christ and is not a spring festival. Our fellow Christians south of the equator already know that. Congenial as nature’s recycling is, showing the beauty spontaneously as art does by craft, the solemn mysteries of Redemption are rooted in eternity which transcends time and space. Jesus said to the Pharisees: “You belong to what is below, I belong to what is above” (John 8: 23 ).

As the seasons are a natural ode to dying and rising, so are our culture’s daily confrontations between good and evil. Celebrating the King of Peace when our nation is at war may seem as contradictory as snow in spring, but the drama of the Passion is the ultimate war against ultimate evil. The Holy Week hymns are battle hymns: the 6th century “Pange lingua gloriosi proelium certaminis" — "Sing my tongue the glorious battle” and “Vexilla Regis prodeunt" — "The royal banners forward go.”

Christ sweat blood, and not just sweat, in his Agony because he knew better than we the depths of evil. He was betrayed by people who lied, from the two false witnesses before the Sanhedrin, and Judas, and Pilate who could not even define truth. Satan was “a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him” (John 8: 44). Evil flees the truth. This past week in Iraq, architects of evil crimes against their own people hid in bunkers just as in Berlin in another April springtime in 1945. As they were hiding, their Ambassador Mohsen Khalil told a press conference in Egypt: “Iraq has now already achieved victory — apart from some technicalities.”

Our Lord tells us that in this world there always will be wars. We “below” can only share his victory, which is “from above,” by accepting the Truth. “That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins” (John 8: 24 ).

Even soldiers of the victorious army can fall. Salvation is granted by God but must never be taken for granted. The Christian life, as summed up in the liturgies of Holy Week, is a constant battle against the Prince of Lies. More cheerful even than a fine spring day is the assurance that Christ’s grace is sufficient for defeating all that contradicts our dignity as sons and daughters of God. Bolstered by the joyful promise, and helped by the saints “from above” who gather with us in this part of the Church “below,” all open the doors to Christ on Palm Sunday:

Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is he who comes
In the name of the Lord!