Psallam​​ TIBI​

O MAGNUM PIETATIS OPUS

 

"O GREAT WORK OF LOVE: that death then died when Life was dead upon the Cross."

 

What could possibly be more grotesque, more heinous a symbol than this instrument of torture and laborious execution, used wantonly by the Romans to shame, maim and drain the last breath of life out of all manner of criminal and traitor? And yet how victorious it stands in its glory: the profoundest of all symbols of love, the most potent symbol of life, and the eternal symbol of salvation. It is the wood of the Cross on which hung the Saviour of the world.

 

It is the greatest mystery of our faith that God so loved the world that He condescended to the frailty of human life in the person of Jesus Christ; and being at once true God and true man he gave what only man may give to gain for mankind what only God may give: His death, for the destruction of death and the restoration of life everlasting. It makes no sense in the eyes of men that our life should be our eternal death and that only by the death of the perfect victim should we attain eternal life. How we have clung to life as if it were our own and not God’s to give and take away; as if we had not lived our days in order to die for our many sins; as if our death was a flaw of the Creator and not the sum of our imperfections.

 

In as much as the price of sin is death, so the cost of life is the Cross of Christ. And that we should not die for our sins but live forever in His love, in the most abundant outpouring of that love, God has offered Himself through the Incarnation of Christ, as the perfect fulfilment of the love for which we were created, and the perfect sacrifice Whose death would reconcile mankind with God for ever more. It is with this in mind that St. Augustine asks, “What may not the hearts of believers promise themselves as the gift of God’s grace, when for their sake God’s only Son, co-eternal with the Father, was not content only to be born as man from human stock but even died at the hands of the men he had created?”

 

St. Augustine elsewhere exhorts, “In order to be healed from sin, gaze upon Christ crucified!”  And that is precisely what we are called upon to do today, as the Church invites us to exalt in the glorious Cross of the Saviour and adore Him who took upon Himself the burden of our sins in order that we should have eternal life. Wherever you are reading this now, take a moment and find a Cross and spend some time looking upon the Crucified One. See, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, how “the instrument of torture which, on Good Friday manifested God’s judgment on the world, has become a source of life, pardon, mercy, a sign of reconciliation and peace.”  Understand what Christ has done for you on the Cross. Understand and rejoice.

 

Rejoice, indeed exult, in this symbol of death, which your Crucified Saviour has made forever the source of your life in Him. The tears of defeat wept at the foot of the Cross resound, now, shouts of victory; for the weakness of human flesh nailed bloody to the wood of the Cross is nothing other than the strength of Almighty God. And what an icon of strength the Cross is, and what faith it inspires, that the apostles Peter, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Simon and Jude are believed to have embraced the same death as their Saviour, rather than deny their faith in the life that the Cross procures. And today, the Holy Cross still stands as a courageous witness to lives lived in the spirit of the Gospel; a symbol of hope, of safety, of peace in a world that is increasingly full of despair, war, and hatred.

 

And we too, like the Apostles, are called to live the way of the Cross, with the strength and conviction that it inspires: to obey the command of Christ to take up our cross daily and follow Him. But what does this mean for us? It means not just a willingness, but an eagerness to accept, with faith in the providence of God, the means of healing that the Cross of Christ offers. It means accepting that we need Him, and grasping the foot of the Cross, as the tempests of our lives try to tear us apart. It means, when catastrophes fall, that we keep the faith, as did Noah. It means that, when sacrifice is demanded of us, we offer ourselves with faith, whole-heartedly into the hands of God, as did Abraham. It means suffering whatever the world throws at us with patience and a stubborn trust in the love of God, as did Job. It means dying to ourselves, even in the pattern of the great army of martyrs, whose blood is witness to the life of the Cruficied One. It means standing side by side with the saints of all times in offering our lives in unison with the One who hangs lifeless on the Cross. It means knowing that no trial, no pain, no hardship or misery can ever be more arduous than that already suffered by the innocent Lamb of God, Whose Cross is our triumph, our life and our glory, in Him Who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.