The San Damiano Cross
The cross, an instrument of torture, represents shame, torture, death, and, paradoxically, transformation, triumph, and the throne of glory.
Desiring continual proximity to the sign, Christians wear crosses around their necks, and place them in houses and churches and gardens. This week’s meditation prompts offer ways to think about the sign of the cross – the meaning of its shape (meditation one) and the cross as a kind of passport (meditation two).
Mediation 1 -Meaning of its shape
The cross of Christ is like a well-cut diamond. Turn it in the sun and you get a variety of colors and sparkles. Among other things, it brings out the price of true love, the power of vulnerability to bring about community, the presence of God within human suffering, how death washes things clean, how death can be triumph, how one is tempted to cry out in despair just before triumph, and especially how God loves us unconditionally.
–Ron Rolheiser O.M.I.
Forgotten Among the Lilies: Learning to Love Beyond Our Fears, 2005
Meditation 2 The Cross as a passport
This scene takes place on Holy Saturday after the harrowing of hell when Jesus releases the dead into heaven, including the “good thief” who died on the cross next to Jesus, in this fourth century “Gospel.”
" And he answered them and said: Ye have rightly said: for I was a robber, doing all manner of evil upon the earth. And (they) crucified me with Jesus, and I beheld the wonders in the creation which came to pass through the cross of Jesus when he was crucified, and I believed that he was the maker of all creatures and the almighty king
"And forthwith he received my prayer, and said unto me: Verily I say unto thee, this day shalt thou be with me in paradise: and he gave me the sign of the cross, saying: Bear this and go unto paradise, and if the angel that keepeth paradise suffer thee not to enter in, show him the sign of the cross; and thou shalt say unto him: Jesus Christ the Son of God who now is crucified hath sent me.
The Paradox of the Cross
But the cross, though it has at its heart a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because it has a paradox in its center it can grow without changing. .. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers.
-G.K.Chesterton 1874-1936
Orthodoxy
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