The great mysteries of redemption unfold gradually

The great mysteries of redemption celebrated in the Church's liturgy always unfold gradually. Throughout Advent, the season of preparation for Christmas, the Church's worship slowly and steadily unfolds the mystery of God-made-man, until we see him in the flesh born of Mary "in Bethlehem of Judea" [Matthew 2.5]. The same process of unfolding takes place during Lent, intensifying its character as a pilgrimage. The "exterior" of that process takes us, with Jesus, up to Jerusalem, where the decisive events of human history will dramatically unfold. The process has an "Interior" as well: as the people of the Church walk with Jesus from his temptation in the desert to his temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane, and then to the final temptation to despair on the Cross, we see unfolding before us (and within us) a cosmic struggle between good and evil—between God's purposes and all the forces that resist the power of divine love.

George Weigel, Roman Pilgrimage