The Cross

THE CROSS

When you are granted the ultimate privilege of hanging on the Cross, and

the tears of joyful, liberating pain flood your eyes, and you taste the

sweetness and the perfect freedom of dying to this life, then you no longer

feel anger or rage, and you know what it means to forgive everyone and

everything. You see how He, when nailed to the Cross, could have forgiven

everyone who has ever lived and ever will live.

In a sense, nothing has changed with you. All the good in you remains, all

the evil in you remains, all the passions remain, and the struggle goes on.

But now you know, you know that there is nothing more sublime, beautiful, and

profound than the Cross. Now you know what it means that He spilt His blood

for you in an agony of pain which even He was afraid and sorrowful to endure.

And when He asks you to drink His Blood and eat His flesh, you are ready to

shed your blood, too, to take up your Cross and follow Him, to share in what

He is, in His Ultimate, Liberating Love. A love that is a pain, but a pain

that is a peace, and a peace that passes all understanding.

And you see other human beings around you, and you still see their

weaknesses. But now you feel such compassion and forgiveness for their

failings, as if they were small children. And you yourself feel like a child.

And so you go on, still as the same person; you fall and get up again. But

now all the transient things in life are seen as secondary, and you know that

they are not everything that your soul truly desires for eternity. And above

them stands that transcendent love, the ultimate act of love that the universe

had never known before and will never know again: God become flesh, mocked,

spat upon, tortured and crucified - by the creatures whom He Himself had

formed from the dust of the ground.

And He suffered it all for their sake.