If I am correct in assuming that you include us calf-licks among the "apostolic", this testifies to me that we have done a downright HORRIBLE job of communicating.
Last night at Mass (the Gospel reading was the anointing at Bethany; the sermon was in invitation to give your "best stuff", to squander it, on paying attention to the Love of God) I was thinking that the Great Battle of the Passion was not just about humans and human souls and salvation (as though that weren't enough), but about wresting the entire cosmos from Satan's grasp.
TO be totally and geekily ridiculous, the death of Christ is like the bomb that Luke Skywalker is able to send right into the heart of the death-star. Sorta kinda as kosta said, Satan expected a corpse and got a nuke!
IN the dark ages, when I was very young and toys weren't designed for children, I got a present that involved winding something up. Being a southpaw (and very very young) I wound it up backwards and fried the spring completely.
The Passion and death fried Satan's clockwork. Without Jesus, evil leads to evil. WITH Jesus, Joseph's betrayal by his brothers saves God's promise to Abraham and saves their own lives.
Death is no longer an end but a beginning ...
I could go on and on. Let us all glorify the miracle of Easter!
As a Dominican whose excellence as a writer is exceeded only by his modesty wrote a dozen years ago:
Always mind that though Lent lasts forty days, the holy season of Easter lasts a full fifty days, from Easter Day until Pentecost, and is followed by still more feasts, those of the Holy Trinity and of the Sacred Body and Blood of Our Lord. It is as though, after a time of sorrow, our Joy -- even our merriment -- should continue until we can celebrate no more. We are spent before our Joy is done.Of course, in my household we don't say that last word until Easter. We say "A-word", so we can save up the whoopee.And must it not be so: that though our sin gives grave cause for great and lengthy sorrow, yet the great Triumph of the Love of God, made plain in the rising of The Son, gives weightier cause for greater and more lengthy Joy? We ought to grieve and to be abashed for a season, because our sin required so dreadful and doleful a remedy. But much more ought we to make merry because Our Sweet Lord so willingly paid the price of our sin and now is risen gloriously.
And much more still ought we to rejoice because He carries us as captives in His climbing train and bears us as precious trophies to lay before the Father’s throne. Alleluia!
Ah, a thousand pardons my friend. :) I must have inadvertently left you off the ping list for one of my earlier explanations. When I use the word "Apostolic" it is PURELY "FK-speak". :) All I mean by it are those views upon which you and the Orthodox agree. This is useful since very, very often it is my experience that I am speaking to both Roman Catholic and Orthodox posters at the same time (like in this post :).
On those views upon which you disagree I must be specific and accurate, but since there are so many that are in agreement, I just wanted a shorthand to designate it. So, I will say that "The Apostolic view is that Mary was sinless" rather than "The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox views are that Mary was sinless". I promise you I mean nothing derogatory at all by it. :)