This Is Its Power

“The Son of Man must be lifted up,” says Jesus to Nicodemus. And he says this with a view to his crucifixion: The Son of Man must be lifted up on the Cross. Whoever believes in him, whoever sees in this Cross and in the Crucified One the Redeemer of the world, whoever looks with faith on the redemptive death of Jesus on the Cross, finds in him the power of eternal life. By this power, sin is overcome. People receive forgiveness of their sins at the price of the Sacrifice of Christ. They find again the life of God, which had been lost by sin.

                This is the meaning of the Cross of Christ. This is its power.

-Saint John Paul II, 1988

In Defense Of The Cross

In an article published by Columbia Magazine this past spring, Krzysztof Mazur wrote about the town of Nowa Huta, or “The New Steel Mill,” built by the communists in Poland after World War II. This was a town for workers, intended to make communism more attractive. Polish religiosity and culture were left out.

Catholic residents of Nowa Huta desperately wanted to build a church, but the authorities wouldn’t allow it. Town leaders eventually permitted believers to build a cross in the city square. This cross became the place of worship for the people there. Christians gathered at the cross for prayers, and Mass was said there on occasion. 

In 1960, four years after the cross was built, the authorities in Nowa Huta decided that it was time to take it down and build a school in its place. On April 27, workers and guards arrived in the city square to tear down the cross. As Mazur recounts, the people put up a fight:

A group of women saw what was happening and equipped themselves with shopping carts, brooms, bricks and bottles. A short time later, when a shift at the steel mill was let out, more than a thousand men started making their way toward the cross carrying shovels, pickaxes and other tools. In a spontaneous act of civil disobedience, 5,000 workers and citizens suddenly gathered in the square.

The protests came to a violent end, but the cross was allowed to remain in its place. Saint John Paul II, who was serving as an auxiliary bishop at the time, provided much religious support for people struggling in Nowa Huta. One way was by organizing midnight Masses under the cross each Christmas eve. 

Fourth Sorrowful Mystery: The Carrying Of The Cross

"And they compelled a passer-by, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull)" (Mk 15:21-22).

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “By accepting in his human will that the Father's will be done, he accepts his death as redemptive, for ‘he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree’ (1 Pt 2:24)” (n. 612).

While meditating on Christ’s carrying of the cross as we prepare for Holy Week, say one Our Father, 10 Hail Mary’s, and a Glory Be.

By This Power, Sin Is Overcome

“The Son of Man must be lifted up... so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him” (Io. 3, 14-15).  The human family had received at the very beginning of earthly history a deadly bite from the “ancient serpent.” He had injected a satanic venom – the venom of original sin – into the souls of the first man and woman. And from that time onward, man’s history on earth has been burdened by sin. A tendency towards sin has generated many evils in the lives of individual persons and the communities to which they belong, in families, in entire peoples and nations.

“The Son of Man must be lifted up,” says Jesus to Nicodemus. And he says this with a view to his crucifixion: The Son of Man must be lifted up on the Cross. Whoever believes in him, whoever sees in this Cross and in the Crucified One the Redeemer of the world, whoever looks with faith on the redemptive death of Jesus on the Cross, finds in him the power of eternal life. By this power, sin is overcome. People receive forgiveness of their sins at the price of the Sacrifice of Christ. They find again the life of God which had been lost by sin.

                -Homily of Blessed John Paul II, Feast of the Triumph of the Cross 1988

The Eleventh Station: Jesus Is Nailed To The Cross

V/. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
R/. Because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

“They tear holes in my hands and my feet; I can count every one of my bones” (Ps 21:17- 18). 

The words of the Prophet are fulfilled.
The execution begins.
The torturers’ blows crush the hands and feet of the Condemned One against the wood of the Cross.
The nails are driven violently into his wrists. Those nails will hold the condemned man as he hangs in the midst of the inexpressible torments of his agony.
In his body and his supremely sensitive spirit, Christ suffers in a way beyond words.
With him there are crucified two real criminals, one on his right, the other on his left. The prophecy is fulfilled: “He was numbered among the transgressors” (Is 53:12).
Once the torturers raise the Cross, there will begin an agony that will last three hours. This word too must be fulfilled: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself” (Jn 12:32).

What is it that “draws” us to the Condemned One in agony on the Cross?
Certainly the sight of such intense suffering stirs compassion. But compassion is not enough to lead us to bind our very life to the One who hangs on the Cross.
How is it that, generation after generation, this appalling sight has drawn countless hosts of people who have made the Cross the hallmark of their faith?
Hosts of men and women who for centuries have lived and given their lives looking to this sign? 

The Triumph of the Cross

This is the meaning of the Cross of Christ. This is its power. “God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved” (Io. 3, 17). 

The feast that we celebrate today speaks of a marvelous and ceaseless action of God in human history, in the history of every man, woman and child. The Cross of Christ on Golgotha has become for all time the center of this saving work of God. Christ is the Savior of the world, because in him and through him the love with which God so loved the world is continuously revealed: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son” (Ibid. 3, 16). 

...The Father gave him so that this Son, who is one in substance with him, would become man by being conceived of the Virgin Mary.

...The Father gave him so that as the Son of Man he would proclaim the Gospel, the Good News of salvation.

...The Father gave him so that this Son, by responding with his own infinite love to the love of the Father, might offer himself on the Cross.

            

                -Blessed John Paul II, Homily on Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, 1988