Christianity is Not a Religion

I've stayed up way past my bedtime, watching the Easter Vigil Mass from the Vatican on EWTN while in the kitchen the Easter bread rises and our teenager finishes work for Model Congress. Later this morning, our family of four  will go to Mass and then we'll come home to what I hope is a scrumptious Easter meal of pork tenderloin with rosemary and garlic, roasted potatoes and carrots. We will finish off with a coconut pie from Mr. Tod's Pie Factory. And then, I plan to plant some pansies in the front yard.

Why are we doing this? What are we celebrating? For what have we spent the days of Lent preparing?

Christianity is not a religion. Christianity makes no sense at all unless we understand Christ died and then rose from the dead. That event, which took place at a certain moment in human history, still is happening because, through Christ, the bounds of space and time were broken by a Mystery which continually summons us. As Monsignor Luigi Giussani reminds us:

"Christianity is an event. There is no other word to indicate its nature: neither the word law nor the word ideology, conception, or project. Christianity is not a religious doctrine, a series of moral laws, a complex of rites. Christianity is a fact, an event: everything else is a consequence."