NEWSLETTER INSERTS - ON THE LORD'S CROSS

‘Those who are beginning in the school of fear carry the cross of Christ with patient submission; those who are progressing in hope bear it willingly and readily; but those who are consumed with love embrace it with ardour’.

St Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon de San Andrea.

‘For St Francis, it was Jesus fastened on the cross  that melted his soul so that whenever Christ’s crucifixion came to his mind, he could scarcely contain his tears and sighs’. This was the prelude to his weeping for love of the poor and his desire to serve them'.

St Bonaventure, The Life of St Francis, 1, 5.

‘You find it written with a strange beauty when you gaze at Jesus your Saviour stretched out like a sheet of parchment on the cross inscribed with wounds, illustrated with his own loving blood. Where else I ask you, is there a comparable book of love to read from?...so fix your mind’s attention there…turn this book over, open it, read it’.

Blessed Jordan of Saxony

‘Christ who is your life is hanging before you, so that you may look at the Cross as in a mirror…Nowhere other than looking at himself in the mirror of the cross can man better understand how much he is worth’.

St Anthony of Padua.

‘To share suffering with another can sometimes, but not always, lighten the burden. To share it with our Lord is altogether different. It is a moment of grace; it never fails. When we venerate the cross, we think of those who are themselves nailed upon it every day by the cruelty and callousness of their fellow men and women and think of Christ suffering again in them - the victims of war, the starving and destitute, the prisoners of conscience, the rejects and outcasts of our society. If we look beyond the cross and beyond the tortured figure, we can see dimly outlined with the eyes of faith, the face of the risen Christ’.

Cardinal Basil Hume

‘At the end of cases in the criminal court, when someone is found guilty of a terrible crime against another, the victim or their families give a victim impact statement telling how the crime has affected their lives and the suffering they have endured. In the presence of the guilty one, they spell out ‘this is what you have done to me’. The cross of Jesus is a type of victim impact statement told not with words for it speaks for itself. It is like a mirror in which we can see the terrible ‘No’ of humanity to God and a window through which we can see the merciful ‘Yes’ of God to humankind that is greater than our 'No' and swallows up all the hatred, cruelty and dysfunction on display on the cross'.

Fr Billy Swan