Olive wood, hand carved crucifix from Assisi, on the wall next to the front door of our house.
"We worship your cross, O Lord, and we praise and glorify your holy resurrection, for the wood of the cross has brought joy to the world" (Antiphon from Morning Prayer, Good Friday).
"...the wood of the cross has brought joy to the world." Let us not forget the joy that is born from the event of this day. Salvation is accomplished. Blood and water flow forth from the Heart of Jesus. The Church is born. Man is reconciled to God. The mystery of the depth of Divine Love is revealed and given to us. It is the beginning and the foundation of the New Creation.
By faith, we recognize in Jesus Crucified the Glory of the God who is Love. We must not brood in an artificial gloom. Let us instead embrace our own sufferings and the sufferings of others who are in our lives, and offer them together with Jesus. On the Cross we receive that love of God that heals and fulfills the deepest desire of our being, the heart's desire to love and to be loved by the Infinite.
But it is more than this. We are given the possibility of sharing in God's love, of a participation in the Divine life. On the Cross, God the Son marries our hearts, and makes us children of the Father in the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The human person, wounded and broken, but still searching for meaning, for the Infinite, for truth and goodness and beauty and love, encounters an unimaginable joy: the love of God penetrating the depths of every sin and pain and sorrow, taking it all up, transforming, healing, and drawing all things to Himself.
