As preached by Brother Luke
Holy Wisdom Chapel
September 17, 2017
When I die, and I am laid out in a coffin I will be holding this cross to my heart. Inscribed on it will be the date of my profession and the date of my death. Though I will not die on a cross, holding on to that symbol in death is a statement about what the cross means for believers. The texts for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross are a wellspring of images about the cross. The text we use at Psalm 51 is almost a sermon in itself.
“O cross of Christ! Be our strength and our protection! By your power make us holy that we may honor you in faith and love. You are the hope of Christians and the guide of those who have strayed, haven of those tossed about by the storm of life, pledge of victory for all who battle evil, and resurrection for the fallen! By its power, O Christ, have mercy on us all!”
We don’t always need a lot of words to get the message across. During our retreat, I happened to pick up a slim volume by a French priest, Pierre-Marie Delfieux, who was the founder of the Jerusalem Community. The book of meditations is on the 7 last words of Christ on the cross and the 15 stations of the cross. Fr Pierre-Marie spent 2 years in the Algerian Sahara Desert in the hermitage of Charles de Foucauld, the famous French religious of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Fr. Pierre-Marie then took from his desert experience the idea that the prayer, silence and peace one can acquire from the desert is desperately needed in urban environments. The mission of the Jerusalem Community is to offer that kind of oasis in Paris, Montreal and other urban settings. His little book reflects that experience.
While using that volume for meditations I was particularly struck by two short phrases that truly captured for me the essence of the symbol of the cross.
The first comes in connection with the word of Christ given to the thief: very truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise. To this Fr Pierre-Marie adds: “it is not so much our flesh that is buried when we die, but rather our past.” For the thief, that meant a full pardon for whatever he had done so that the path to heaven could be opened to him. And for us, the cross symbolizes the total forgiveness that Christ’s passion represents. So, as I hold on to this cross, whether in life or in death, I am grasping at that promise of forgiveness that is the foundation of God’s love for us. I am also being reminded that such forgiveness is our mission to others.
The second phrase is tied to the statement: woman this is your son, son this is your mother. Part of the meditation on that word of Christ is tied to the scene when the centurion uses his lance to spear the side of Christ and from that wound flows blood and water. That image has often puzzled me. Why the emphasis on both blood and water? Fr Pierre-Marie gives a beautiful answer: it is the blood of our life and the water of our pardon. Christ shed his blood for our salvation. He gives it to us again at every communion. The water symbolizes cleansing and purification to which the many examples in scripture testify. Water is used to wash away our sins, especially in Baptism. Water, living water, is what Jesus offers to the woman at the well. The water we bless at Theophany is then used in turn to bless others and our environment. It is the water turned into wine at the wedding feast that brings joy and foreshadows the eucharistic celebration.
So, as we continue to celebrate this feast of the exaltation of the holy cross, may our gaze upon that cross help us to see in it God’s gifts to us and to pass them on: the gift life, the gift of understanding, the gift of forgiveness, and the gift of love.
