O Happy Fault

“O happy fault that earned for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer!”

Happy Easter!  May we, together, rejoice in the Resurrection of our Lord and the opportunity for new life that He has given us this day.  In This Easter reflection, I want to meditate on a little excerpt from the Exsultet sung at the Easter Vigil.  “O happy fault that earned for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer!”  This phrase speaks of the fall, of Adam and Eve’s original sin that introduced sin into the world.  The Exsultet calls original sin a “happy fault”.  At first glance, this can seem strange.  How can we rejoice even in our sin?

To answer this question, we must look to the second half of the phrase: “that earned for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer!”  We can rejoice even in our weakness because our suffering has been redeemed.  By His life, death, and resurrection Jesus has “made all things new” (Revelation 21:5).  He has revealed to us the power of His love to conquer even our greatest limitations.  It is because of this love that we rejoice; by this love we have been redeemed!

Father Maximos Davies, a Byzantine Catholic monk, gave us a great analogy about sin in a retreat we had at the beginning of Lent.  He said that God created us as cucumbers, nice and smooth according to His will.  But He gave us free will, and we chose to reject God’s love by soaking ourselves in the brine of sin.  Thus, we became pickles, scarred forever by our sin.  In a loving response, God said, “Well, I preferred pickles anyway.”  Thus God accepted us, as poor and sinful as we had chosen to become, and loved us through it all.  He proved it through sacrificing His only begotten Son for our salvation.  This is a cause for great joy!

God permits sin as a vehicle to the love and mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Thus, our sins and the sins of others should never shock us or cause us to love ourselves or others less.  We must thank God for the crosses we bear, for our brokenness and limitations, for He uses these to lead us along His path, deeper into His love and mercy, and thus deeper into relationship with Him.  Therefore, we are able to rejoice even in our sin, weakness, and poverty because it is through these that we find the love of so great a Redeemer.  And as we find this love, may we meet Jesus Christ as our Savior and be led ever deeper into love, communion, and relationship with Him.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” (Psalm 118: 22)

“Let this holy building shake with joy!” (Exsultet)

Rejoice in the Lord,

Hayden