Without the resurrection, our faith would be in vain. With it, life has triumphed, evil has been defeated, and the future of the world is open. The resurrection proclaims that death did not have the last word and that the living Christ reigns forever.
However, this glorious victory can never be separated from the cross. The resurrection springs from Jesus' total gift of Himself. Before being the risen Christ, he was the crucified Christ. This is why JC2033 also encourages a simple, daily gesture: to pause every day at 3 p.m., the hour of Christ's death, for a brief moment of prayer and remembrance.
The Scriptures clearly tell us that Jesus died at three o'clock in the afternoon. The Gospel of Mark reports that after three hours of darkness, Jesus cried out in a loud voice and gave up his spirit. Three o'clock. This moment is not a mere chronological indication. It is the hour when the salvation of the world was accomplished. It is the hour when God's love went to the end, already opening, in the shadow of the cross, the light of Easter.
At 3 p.m., Jesus bore the weight of sin, injustice, and death. But this burden did not crush love, it revealed it. In dying, Jesus opened a source of mercy that has never closed, a source that springs forth to this day in the power of the resurrection. In association with other movements, JC2033 invites believers to rediscover the spiritual power of this precise moment, as a daily gateway to the life of the Risen One.
Stopping every day at 3 p.m. means entering into the very heart of God's plan - letting the cross be illuminated by the resurrection, and the resurrection give the cross its full meaning. It means preparing our hearts for the definitive victory of the living Christ.
