He turned a symbol of hate and torture into one of love and mercy.
There will be very little blogging today. Perhaps a few things after 3:00 p.m. (EDT), but for now, only these:
The cross cannot be defeated. . . For it is Defeat. G.K. Chesterton
On those who hate Christianity: "They do not dislike the Cross because it is a dead symbol; but because it is a live symbol." G.K. Chesterton
"[A]s long as sin remains on earth, still will the Cross remain." Fulton Sheen
"God has given us our lives as wheat and grapes. It is our duty to consecrate them and bring them back to God as bread and wine--transubstaniated, divinized, and spiritualized. There must be harvest in our hands after the springtime of the earthly pilgrimage.
"That is why Calvary is erected in the midst of us, and we are on its sacred hill. We were not made to be mere on-lookers . . . but rather to be participants in the mystery of the Cross." Fulton Sheen.
"Since the symbols of baptism and the eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam." St. John Chrysostom
“His Cross has put its due value upon every thing which we see, upon all fortunes, all advantages, all ranks, all dignities, all pleasures; upon the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. It has set a price upon the excitements, the rivalries, the hopes, the fears, the desires, the efforts, the triumphs of mortal man. It has given a meaning to the various, shifting course, the trials, the temptations, the sufferings of his earthly state. It has brought together and made consistent all that seemed discordant and aimless. It has taught us how to live, how to use this world, what to expect, what to desire, what to hope. It is the tone into which all the strains of the world's music are ultimately to be resolved.” John Henry Newman
"No one ever experienced the plunge down the vacuum of evil as did God's Son”“even to the excruciating agony behind the words: “My God, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?” Jesus was really destroyed. Cut off in the flower of his age; his work stifled just when it should have taken root; his friends scattered, his honor broken. He no longer had anything, was anything: 'a worm and not a man.'
"Only Christ's love is certain. We cannot even say God's love; for that God loves us we also know, ultimately, only through Christ." Romano Guardini
"Communion with Jesus means becoming like him. With him we are nailed on the cross, with him we are laid in the tomb, with him we are raised up to accompany lost travelers in their journey." Henri Nouwen
"You are saddened because of the unjust treatment shown your Lord, but yours is still greater sadness because you feel yourself incapable of bearing even small injuries for the honor of Christ." Thomas A'Kempis
