Human History is a History of Salvation

VATICAN CITY, 12 OCT 2011 (VIS) - During his general audience this morning the Holy Father dedicated his catechesis to Psalm 126 which, he said, "celebrates the great things which the Lord has done for His people, and which He continues to do for all believers".  

The Psalm "speaks of 'restored fortunes'", the Pope explained, "in other words, fortunes restored to their original state". This was the experience of the People of Israel when they returned to their homeland after the Babylonian exile, which had been such a devastating experience not only in political and social terms but also from a religious and spiritual point of view.  

"Divine intervention often takes unexpected forms which go beyond what man might expect. ... God works marvels in the history of mankind. ... He reveals Himself as the powerful and merciful Lord, the refuge of the oppressed Who does not ignore the cry of the poor. ... Thus, with the liberation of the People of Israel, everyone recognises the great and wondrous things God has done for His People and celebrates the Lord as Saviour".  

However, the Holy Father went on, "the Psalm goes beyond the purely historical and opens to a broader, theological dimension". It uses images which "allude to the mysterious truth of redemption, in which the gift we have received and the gift we await, life and death, intertwine".  

The watercourses of the Neg'eb symbolise divine intervention which, like water, "is capable of transforming the desert into a vast expanse of green grass and flowers", the Pope explained. Later the Psalm also uses the image of peasants cultivating their fields "to speak of salvation. The reference here is to the annual cycle of agriculture: the difficult and arduous time of sowing then the overriding joy of the harvest. ... The seed sprouts and grows".  

"This is the hidden mystery of life, these are the 'great and wondrous things of salvation which the Lord achieves in the history of mankind, but the secret of which is unknown to man. Divine intervention, when fully expressed, has an overpowering dimension, like the watercourses of the Neg'eb and the grain in the fields. This latter image also evokes the disproportion typical of the things of God: disproportion between the fatigue of sowing and the immense joy of the harvest".  

"The Psalmist refers to all these things to speak of salvation. ... The deportation to Babylon, like other situations of suffering and crisis, ... with its doubts and the apparent distance from God is, in reality, ... like a seedbed. In the mystery of Christ and in the light of the New Testament, the message becomes even clearer and more explicit: the believer who passes through the darkness is like the seed of grain that falls to earth and dies, but brings forth much fruit".  

"This Psalm teaches us that ... we must remain hopeful and firm in our faith in God. Our history, though often marked by suffering, uncertainty and moments of crisis, is a history of salvation and 'restoration of fortunes'. In Jesus our exile ends: ... in the mystery of His cross, in death transformed into life, like the seed which splits in the earth and becomes an ear of wheat".

http://www.news.va/en/news/human-history-is-a-history-of-salvation

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2011/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20111012_en.html

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"Pray that society might enjoy true peace, based on justice and respect for the freedom and dignity of all citizens.

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The Almighty has done great things for us...  (Luke 1:49)

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The Closeness of God Transforms Reality

VATICAN CITY, 5 OCT 2011 (VIS) - The Holy Father dedicated his catechesis during this morning's general audience to Psalm 23 which begins with the words: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want". "Addressing the Lord in prayer implies a radical act of confidence, the awareness of entrusting oneself to God Who is good", he said.

Psalm 23 is an example of such confidence. "The Psalmist expresses his tranquil certainty that he will be guided and protected, sheltered from all danger because the Lord is his shepherd. ... The image evokes an atmosphere of trust, intimacy, tenderness. The shepherd knows his sheep individually, he calls them by name and they follow him because they recognise and trust him. He takes care of them, protects them like a treasure, and is ready to defend them in order to guarantee their wellbeing, to ensure they live in peace. They shall want nothing if the shepherd is with them".

The Psalm describes the oasis of peace to which the shepherd leads his flock. The setting is a desert landscape, "yet the shepherd knows where to find pasture and water, which are essential for life, he knows the way to the oasis in which the soul can be 'restored' with new energies to start the journey afresh. As the Psalmist says, God guides him to 'green pastures' and 'still waters' where all things are in abundance. ... If the Lord is the shepherd, even in the desert, a place of scarcity and death, we do not lose our certainty in the radical presence of life".

The shepherd adapts his rhythms and his needs to those of his flock. "If we walk behind the 'Good Shepherd'", the Pope said, " however difficult, tortuous and long the paths of our life may seem, we too can be certain that they are right for us, that the Lord guides us and that He is always close".

Hence the Psalmist adds: "Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me". Benedict XVI explained how, although the Psalmist here uses a Hebrew expression which evokes the shadows of death, he nonetheless proceeds without fear because he knows the Lord is with him. "This is a proclamation of unshakeable trust and encapsulates a radical experience of faith: the closeness of God transforms reality, the darkest valley loses all its perils".

This image concludes the first part of the Psalm and opens the way to a change of scene. "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows". The Lord is now presented "as the One Who welcomes the Psalmist with generous hospitality. ... Food, oil, wine are the gifts that enable us to live, they bring joy because they lie beyond what is strictly necessary, an expression of the gratitude and abundance of love". In the meantime the enemies look on powerlessly because "when God opens His tent to welcome us, nothing can harm us".

The Psalmist goes on "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long". The Psalmist's journey "acquires fresh meaning and becomes a pilgrimage towards the Temple of the Lord, the holy place in which he wishes 'to dwell' forever". Likewise, living near God and His goodness is what all believers long for, the Holy Father said.

This Psalm has accompanied the entire history and religious experience of the People of Israel, but only in Jesus Christ is its evocative strength "fulfilled and fully expressed: Jesus is the 'Good Shepherd' Who goes in search of the lost sheep, Who knows His sheep and gives His life for them. He is the way, the way that leads to life, the light that illuminates the dark valley and overcomes all our fears. He is the generous host Who welcomes us and saves us from our enemies, preparing the banquet of His Body and His Blood for us, and the definitive banquet ... in heaven. He is the regal Shepherd, King in meekness and mercy, enthroned on the glorious seat of the cross".

Psalm 23 invites us to renew our trust in God, the Pope concluded, "to abandon ourselves completely in His hands. Let us, then, trustingly ask the Lord to allow us always to walk on His paths, even along the difficult paths of our own times, as a docile and obedient flock; let us ask Him to welcome us into His house, at His table, and to lead us to 'still waters' so that, in welcoming the gift of His Spirit, we may drink from His spring, source of that living water which 'gushes up to eternal life'".

http://www.news.va/en/news/the-closeness-of-god-transforms-reality

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The Testimony of Saint Francis of Assisi

Fresco, Saint Francis with Jesus and Blessed Mother Mary
Bishop's Office, Assisi

O how happy and blessed are those who love the Lord and do as the Lord himself said in the gospel:  You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul, and your neighbor as yourself.  Therefore, let us love God and adore him with pure heart and mind.  This is his particular desire when he says:  True worshipers adore the Father in spirit and truth.  For all who adore him must do so in the spirit of truth.  Let us also direct to him our praises and prayers saying:  Our Father, who are in heaven, since we must always pray and never grow slack.

- From a letter written to all the faithful by Saint Francis of Assisi

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It has been said that Francis represents an alter Christus, that he was truly a living icon of Christ. He has also been called "the brother of Jesus". Indeed, this was his ideal: to be like Jesus, to contemplate Christ in the Gospel, to love him intensely and to imitate his virtues. In particular, he wished to ascribe interior and exterior poverty with a fundamental value, which he also taught to his spiritual sons. The first Beatitude of the Sermon on the Mount "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5: 3) found a luminous fulfilment in the life and words of St Francis. Truly, dear friends, the saints are the best interpreters of the Bible. As they incarnate the word of God in their own lives, they make it more captivating than ever, so that it really speaks to us. The witness of Francis, who loved poverty as a means to follow Christ with dedication and total freedom, continues to be for us too an invitation to cultivate interior poverty in order to grow in our trust of God, also by adopting a sober lifestyle and a detachment from material goods.

Francis' love for Christ expressed itself in a special way in the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist. In the Fonti Francescane (Writings of St Francis) one reads such moving expressions as: "Let everyone be struck with fear, let the whole world tremble, and let the heavens exult, when Christ, the Son of the living God, is present on the altar in the hands of a priest. Oh stupendous dignity! O humble sublimity, that the Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles himself that for our salvation he hides himself under an ordinary piece of bread" (Francis of Assisi, Scritti, Editrici Francescane, Padova 2002, 401).

… Francis was a great Saint and a joyful man. His simplicity, his humility, his faith, his love for Christ, his goodness towards every man and every woman, brought him gladness in every circumstance. Indeed, there subsists an intimate and indissoluble relationship between holiness and joy. A French writer once wrote that there is only one sorrow in the world: not to be saints, that is, not to be near to God. Looking at the testimony of St Francis, we understand that this is the secret of true happiness: to become saints, close to God!

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI

General Audience, 27 January 2010

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20100127_en.html

His Excellency Sergio Goretti, Bishop of Assisi; Fr. GianMaria Polidoro, OFM, WUCWO  Ecclesiastical Assistant;
Stella Bellefroid, WUCWO Treasurer General; Karen Hurley, Vice President for North America;
Vera Halperin de Tabanera, Vice President for Latin America-Caribbean; Elizabeth Twissa, Vice President for Africa;
Assisi, 2004

   

His Excellency Sergio Goretti, Bishop of Assisi, warmly welcomed the Executive Committee and affirmed the good work and mission of WUCWO.  He shared his personal experiences during the earthquake of September 1996 as well as the beautiful images of St. Francis with Baby Jesus and the Blessed Mother Mary, which were revealed within his office wall after the collapse of another wall.

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Gillian Badcock, WUCWO Secretary General
Reading at Mass in Chapel at Santa Maria degli Angeli, Assisi

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Dove, Assisi

Assisi Pax International is a peace association founded in St Francis’s native land of Assisi. Its aim is to further a methodology of peace  as envisaged by its founder, GianMaria Polidoro, a Franciscan friar, who looked at St. Francis’s experience of peace and love for nature.

http://www.assisipax.org/index-en.asp

The Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land (FFHL) is a worldwide ecumenical organization operating under the auspices of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. The principle purpose of the FFHL is to help stem the Christian exodus from the Holy Land by providing programs and projects that will serve as incentives for the Christians to remain as well as safeguarding the basic human rights of the Christian Palestinian minority living in the Holy Land.

http://ffhl.org/2006/default.asp

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Fr. GianMaria Polidoro, OFM, celebrating Mass at the Hermitage Cave of St. Francis
Monte Subiaso, Assisi, 2004
Karen Hurley; Vera de Tabanera; Maria Eugenia Diaz de Pfennich, WUCWO President General

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The Prayer of Saint Francis Before this Crucifix

Most high, glorious God, cast your light into the darkness of my heart. 
Give me Lord, right faith, firm hope, perfect charity and profound humility,
with wisdom and perception, so that I may carry out what is truly your holy will. 
Amen.

Assisi Sunset, September 2004

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Silence and Word: Path of Evangelization

VATICAN CITY, 29 SEP 2011 (VIS) - Given below is the text of an English-language note released today by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, concerning the publication of the theme for World Communications Day Message 2012.

  "The extraordinarily varied nature of the contribution of modern communications to society highlights the need for a value which, on first consideration, might seem to stand in contradistinction to it. Silence, in fact, is the central theme for the next World Communications Day Message: 'Silence and Word: path of evangelisation'. In the thought of Pope Benedict XVI, silence is not presented simply as an antidote to the constant and unstoppable flow of information that characterises society today but rather as a factor that is necessary for its integration. Silence, precisely because it favours habits of discernment and reflection, can in fact be seen primarily as a means of welcoming the word. We ought not to think in terms of a dualism, but of the complementary nature of two elements which when they are held in balance serve to enrich the value of communication and which make it a key factor that can serve the new evangelisation. It is clearly the desire of the Holy Father to associate the theme of the next World Communications Day with the celebration of the forthcoming Synod of Bishops which will have as its own theme: 'The New Evangelisation for the Transmission of the Christian Faith'.

  "World Communications Day, the only worldwide celebration called for by Vatican Council II ('Inter Mirifica' 1963), is celebrated in most countries, on the recommendation of the bishops of the world, on the Sunday before Pentecost (in 2012, 20 May).

  "The Holy Father's message for World Communications Day is traditionally published in conjunction with the Memorial of St. Francis de Sales, patron of writers (January 24)".

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To Offer Something to God

I am glad to be here today to meet all of you who work in so many ways for the Church and for society. This gives me a welcome opportunity personally to thank you most sincerely for your commitment and your witness as “powerful heralds of the faith in things to be hoped for” (Lumen Gentium, 35 – validi praecones fidei sperandarum rerum); this is how the Second Vatican Council describes people like you who do dedicated work for the present and the future from a faith perspective. In your fields of activity you readily stand up for your faith and for the Church, something that, as we know, is not at all easy at the present time.

For some decades now we have been experiencing a decline in religious practice and we have been seeing substantial numbers of the baptized drifting away from church life. This prompts the question: should the Church not change? Must she not adapt her offices and structures to the present day, in order to reach the searching and doubting people of today?

Blessed Mother Teresa was once asked what in her opinion was the first thing that would have to change in the Church. Her answer was: you and I.

Two things are clear from this brief story. On the one hand Mother Teresa wants to tell her interviewer: the Church is not just other people, not just the hierarchy, the Pope and the bishops: we are all the Church, we the baptized. And on the other hand her starting-point is this: yes, there are grounds for change. There is a need for change. Every Christian and the whole community of the faithful are called to constant change.… The fundamental motive for change is the apostolic mission of the disciples and the Church herself.

The Church, in other words, must constantly rededicate herself to her mission. The three Synoptic Gospels highlight various aspects of the missionary task. The mission is built first of all upon personal experience: “You are witnesses” (Luke 24:48); it finds expression in relationships: “Make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19); and it spreads a universal message: “Preach the Gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). Through the demands and constraints of the world, however, this witness is constantly obscured, the relationships are alienated and the message is relativized. If the Church, in Pope Paul VI’s words, is now struggling “to model itself on Christ's ideal”, this “can only result in its acting and thinking quite differently from the world around it, which it is nevertheless striving to influence” (Ecclesiam Suam, 58). In order to accomplish her mission, she will need again and again to set herself apart from her surroundings, to become in a certain sense “unworldly”.

The Church’s mission has its origins in the mystery of the triune God, in the mystery of his creative love. And love is not just somehow within God, it is God, he himself is love by nature. And divine love does not want to exist only for itself, by nature it wants to pour itself out. It has come down to humanity, to us, in a particular way through the incarnation and self-offering of God’s Son: by virtue of the fact that Christ, the Son of God, as it were stepped outside the framework of his divinity, took flesh and became man, not merely to confirm the world in its worldliness and to be its companion, leaving it to carry on just as it is, but in order to change it. The Christ event includes the inconceivable fact of what the Church Fathers call a sacrum commercium, an exchange between God and man. The Fathers explain it in this way: we have nothing to give God, we have only our sin to place before him. And this he receives and makes his own, while in return he gives us himself and his glory: a truly unequal exchange, which is brought to completion in the life and passion of Christ. He becomes, as it were, a “sinner”, he takes sin upon himself, takes what is ours and gives us what is his. But as the Church continued to reflect upon and live the faith, it became clear that we not only give him our sin, but that he has empowered us, from deep within he gives us the power, to offer him something positive as well: our love – to offer him humanity in the positive sense. Clearly, it is only through God’s generosity that man, the beggar, who receives a wealth of divine gifts, is yet able to offer something to God as well; that God makes it possible for us to accept his gift, by making us capable of becoming givers ourselves in his regard.

The Church owes her whole being to this unequal exchange. She has nothing of her own to offer to him who founded her, such that she might say: here is something wonderful that we did! Her raison d’être consists in being a tool of redemption, in letting herself be saturated by God’s word and in bringing the world into loving unity with God. The Church is immersed in the Redeemer’s outreach to men. When she is truly herself, she is always on the move, she constantly has to place herself at the service of the mission that she has received from the Lord. And therefore she must always open up afresh to the cares of the world, to which she herself belongs, and give herself over to them, in order to make present and continue the holy exchange that began with the Incarnation….

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI

25 September 2011

Freiburg, Germany

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2011/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20110925_catholics-freiburg_en.html

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Turn to Mary

When Christians of all times and places turn to Mary, they are acting on the spontaneous conviction that Jesus cannot refuse his mother what she asks; and they are relying on the unshakable trust that Mary is also our mother – a mother who has experienced the greatest of all sorrows, who feels all our griefs with us and ponders in a maternal way how to overcome them.

Let us look upon her likeness: a woman of middle age, her eyelids heavy with much weeping, gazing pensively into the distance, as if meditating in her heart upon everything that had happened. On her knees rests the lifeless body of her son, she holds him gently and lovingly, like a precious gift. We see the marks of the crucifixion on his bare flesh….   The hearts of Jesus and his mother are turned to one another; the hearts come close to each other. They exchange their love. We know that the heart is also the seat of the deepest affection and the most intimate compassion. In Mary’s heart there is room for the love that her divine Son wants to bestow upon the world.

Marian devotion focuses on contemplation of the relationship between the Mother and her divine Son. In their prayers and sufferings, in their thanksgiving and joy, the faithful have constantly discovered new dimensions and qualities which this mystery can help to disclose for us, for example when the image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is seen as a symbol of her deep and unreserved loving unity with Christ. It is not self-realization, the desire for self-possession and self-formation, that truly enables people to flourish, according to the model that modern life so often proposes to us, which easily turns into a sophisticated form of selfishness. Rather it is an attitude of self-giving, self-emptying, directed towards the heart of Mary and hence towards the heart of Christ and towards our neighbour: this is what enables us to find ourselves.

“We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28)…. With Mary, God has worked for good in everything, and he does not cease, through Mary, to cause good to spread further in the world. Looking down from the Cross, from the throne of grace and salvation, Jesus gave us his mother Mary to be our mother. At the moment of his self-offering for mankind, he makes Mary as it were the channel of the rivers of grace that flow from the Cross. At the foot of the Cross, Mary becomes our fellow traveller and protector on life’s journey. “By her motherly love she cares for her son’s sisters and brothers who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties, until they are led into their blessed home,” as the Second Vatican Council expressed it (Lumen Gentium, 62). Yes indeed, in life we pass through high-points and low-points, but Mary intercedes for us with her Son and helps us to discover the power of his divine love, and to open ourselves to that love.

Our trust in the powerful intercession of the Mother of God and our gratitude for the help we have repeatedly experienced impel us, as it were, to think beyond the needs of the moment. What does Mary actually want to say to us, when she rescues us from some trial? She wants to help us grasp the breadth and depth of our Christian vocation. With a mother’s tenderness, she wants to make us understand that our whole life should be a response to the love of our God, who is so rich in mercy. “Understand,” she seems to say to us, “that God, who is the source of all that is good and who never desires anything other than your true happiness, has the right to demand of you a life that yields wholly and joyfully to his will, striving at the same time that others may do likewise.” Where God is, there is a future. Indeed – when we allow God’s love to pervade and to shape the whole of our lives, then heaven stands open. Then it is possible so to shape the present that it corresponds more and more to the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then the little things of everyday life acquire meaning, and great problems find solutions.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI

23 September 2011

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2011/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20110923_vespers-etzelsbach_en.html



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The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

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 centre of this saving work of God. Christ is the Saviour 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” (John 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.

From a human point of view, Christ’s offering of himself on the Cross was a sign of contradiction, an unthinkable disgrace. It was, in fact, the most profound humiliation possible.

The Apostle Paul speaks to us in words that capture the mystery of the Cross of Christ: “His state was divine, yet he did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave, and became as men are; and being as all men are, he was humbler yet, even to accepting death, death on a Cross. But God raised him high” (Philippians 2, 6-9). 

Through his self-emptying on Golgotha, in the disgrace of the Cross and the crucifixion (at least in the human way of understanding these events) Christ receives the highest exaltation. In God’s eyes, the Cross is the greatest triumph. The way of human judgement is very different from God’s. God’s judgement far surpasses ours. What seems to us to be failure is, in God’s eyes, the victory of sacrificial love.

It is precisely this Cross of human disgrace that bears within itself the source of the exaltation of Christ in God.

“God raised him high and gave him the name which is above all other names so that all beings in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld, should bend the knee at the name of Jesus and that every tongue should acclaim Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Ibid. 2, 9-11). 

To the eyes of the Apostles this was revealed through the Resurrection of Christ. At that moment they understood that Christ is the Lord, that he has been given all power in heaven and on earth. At that moment their eyes and their hearts were opened, so that the lips of Thomas could profess: “My Lord and My God”! (Io. 20, 28). And once they had come to believe, through the power of the Spirit of Truth, they were ready to go forth into the whole world to teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Cfr. Matthew 28, 19). 

Yes, it is through the Cross that Christ is exalted. Today’s feast of the Church speaks to us of this mystery. At the same time, it speaks of Christ who by means of the Cross lifts up humanity, lifts up all humanity and indeed all creation. “For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved” (John 3, 17). 

Being “saved” means that every man and woman can be healed of the sin that poisoned the human family and all history. Jesus says to his Apostles after his Resurrection: “Those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven”.  And as he says it he shows them the wounds of his crucifixion, to let them know that it is precisely in the Cross that the power to forgive sins is hidden, the power to heal consciences and human hearts.

Generation after generation passes. And in the midst of this passing, the Cross of Christ remains. Through the Cross, God continuously proclaims to the world the infinite love which no created evil is able to overcome. Yes, the Cross remains, so that in it the world, indeed every human person, may find the way of salvation. For it is by this Cross that the world is saved!

His Holiness Pope John Paul II

14 September 1988

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/homilies/1988/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19880914_lesotho_en.html

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…The sign of the Cross is a kind of synthesis of our faith, for it tells how much God loves us; it tells us that there is a love in this world that is stronger than death, stronger than our weaknesses and sins. The power of love is stronger than the evil which threatens us….   Mary… invites all people of good will, all those who suffer in heart or body, to raise their eyes towards the Cross of Jesus, so as to discover there the source of life, the source of salvation.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI

14 September 2008

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20080914_lourdes-apparizioni_en.html

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I would like to reflect on two … important liturgical events: the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, celebrated on 14 September, and the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, celebrated the following day.

These two liturgical celebrations can be summed up visually in the traditional image of the Crucifixion, which portrays the Virgin Mary at the foot of the Cross, according to the description of the Evangelist John, the only one of the Apostles who stayed by the dying Jesus.

But what does exalting the Cross mean? Is it not maybe scandalous to venerate a shameful form of execution? The Apostle Paul says: "We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles" (I Corinthians 1: 23). Christians, however, do not exalt just any cross but the Cross which Jesus sanctified with his sacrifice, the fruit and testimony of immense love. Christ on the Cross pours out his Blood to set humanity free from the slavery of sin and death.

Therefore, from being a sign of malediction, the Cross was transformed into a sign of blessing, from a symbol of death into a symbol par excellence of the Love that overcomes hatred and violence and generates immortal life. "O Crux, ave spes unica! O Cross, our only hope!". Thus sings the liturgy.

The Evangelist recounts: Mary was standing by the Cross (cf. John 19: 25-27). Her sorrow is united with that of her Son. It is a sorrow full of faith and love. The Virgin on Calvary participates in the saving power of the suffering of Christ, joining her "fiat", her "yes", to that of her Son.

Dear brothers and sisters, spiritually united to Our Lady of Sorrows, let us also renew our "yes" to God who chose the Way of the Cross in order to save us. This is a great mystery which continues and will continue to take place until the end of the world, and which also asks for our collaboration.

May Mary help us to take up our cross every day and follow Jesus faithfully on the path of obedience, sacrifice and love.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI

17 September 2006

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/angelus/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ang_20060917_en.html

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The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is built over the hill of Golgotha and the Tomb of our Lord.  You view Golgotha, the rock, behind glass.  I was not prepared for the unprecedented physical as well as emotional impact of viewing the place where Jesus was crucified, suffered and died.  My chest was clenched by an unseen force and I began to tremble as tears threatened to fall.  Kneeling before Golgotha it is possible to put one’s hand through a hole within the 14-point star which marks the spot and to touch the surface of the rock.  We spent a few quiet moments before Fr. Peter Vasko, OFM, our guide, described the scene our Blessed Mother witnessed as her Son was crucified.  He urged us to imagine how we would feel if that was happening to our loved one while we were physically powerless to help them. 

A lifetime will be not enough to contemplate this mystery of unconditional love and self-sacrifice displayed by of our Lord in reparation for our sins.

From a Journal Entry

Jerusalem, 2 March 2009

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At the Cross her station keeping,
stood the mournful Mother weeping,
close to Jesus to the last.

Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,
all His bitter anguish bearing,
now at length the sword has passed.

O how sad and sore distressed
was that Mother, highly blest,
of the sole-begotten One.

Christ above in torment hangs,
she beneath beholds the pangs
of her dying glorious Son.

Is there one who would not weep,
whelmed in miseries so deep,
Christ's dear Mother to behold?

Can the human heart refrain
from partaking in her pain,
in that Mother's pain untold?

O thou Mother! Font of love!
Touch my spirit from above,
make my heart with thine accord.

Make me feel as thou hast felt;
make my soul to glow and melt
with the love of Christ my Lord.

From Stabat Mater dolorosa, translated by Edward Caswall, 1814-1878

Is the Lord calling you to Golgotha?

Please prayerfully consider joining me on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in March 2012. 

For the pilgrimage brochure please visit:  http://db.tt/XrBlFtz

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