The Cross Stands Still While the World Revolves
By Fr. John Roderick, F.S.C.B.
October, 2023
Over the past few years, I have recognized how important it is to have my brother priests of my community continuously remind me to look at the cross. We always begin and finish each day with communal prayer in our chapel or in front of a sacred image of Christ or the Virgin Mary. I have come to be more aware of how precious our friendship is; it is the privileged place which reminds me and educates me to look at Christ’s merciful love on the cross. Often, I find myself distracted, worried, sometimes annoyed at myself and others. These special moments help me to lift my gaze from these problems and difficulties and see them through the lens of the cross. Everything seems to find its proper place when seen with and through His mercy.
I was deeply struck by the beauty of the readings and antiphons from the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours on the Feast of the Exultation of the Holy Cross (September 14th). The Liturgy of the Hours (also known as the Divine Office or Breviary) is the daily prayer of the Church which marks the hours of the day and sanctifies them with prayer. Today, I would like to share and comment on a few of the liturgical jewels that the Church gave us to reflect upon that day. Through the wisdom of the Church which is reflected in the choice of prayers and readings, we can better understand the centrality of the mystery of the Cross as the display of God’s infinite love for us and for the whole world.
Feast of the Holy Cross. The origin of the feast dates to the fourth century when the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, St. Helena, went to the Holy Land on a pilgrimage to visit and pray at the important sites of Jesus’ life. She wanted to go to the place where Jesus was crucified and find the cross upon which he hung. According to tradition, following the crucifixion of Jesus, the Jews hid the True Cross and covered it with rocks to prevent the Christians from venerating it. However, there was a small group of Christians who knew this information and passed it down over the centuries. After speaking with many locals and with the assistance of the Bishop of Jerusalem, St. Helena found the location of the crucifixion as well as the True Cross. The legend recounts that while digging, they found three crosses. To determine the True Cross, they laid them out on the ground, and St. Macarius, the Bishop of Jerusalem at the time, asked a woman with a deadly disease to touch each of the crosses. The first two had no effect on her, but upon touching the third, the woman was immediately healed.
“What a great work of charity! Death itself died when life was slain on the tree.” This antiphon from Evening Prayer reminds us that the mystery of Jesus’ death on the cross is, above all, an act of Divine charity. Charity can be described as a gratuitous, selfless act of love to affirm friendship between God and man. St. Paul tells us that death, the complete separation from God at the end of life, was introduced into the world through sin (Romans 6:23). God the Father sent his only Son, Jesus, into the world to reveal the truth of God’s infinite love for humanity and to restore to us the familiarity with God which was lost because of sin. The antiphon refers to the “tree” which points to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the eating of the forbidden fruit (Genesis 2–3). The Cross is the new and definitive “Tree of Life.” Dying on the Cross, Jesus completely shattered the wall which separated humanity from God; Jesus’ death changed the meaning of death forever. Through the death and resurrection of Christ, life and love have definitively triumphed over sin and death.
“The Lord hung upon the cross to wash away our sins in his own blood. How splendid is that blessed cross.” This antiphon from Morning Prayer invites us to look upon the crucified Lord hanging on the cross. Often, we fall into the terrible temptation to dwell and focus our attention more on our sins and the sins of others than the mystery of Christ’s love on the cross. The darkness of our personal sin and the sins of the world can only be enlightened by the mystery of God’s love for us revealed on the cross. We have absolutely no ability to free ourselves from the bonds of sin. It is only through the mystery of Christ’s death and the shedding of his blood that we and the whole world can be forgiven. What appears to be a tragedy, the death of the Son of God on the cross, is in fact, the triumph of the splendor of mercy and the restoration of the blessed communion which was lost because of sin.
“The cross is something wonderfully great and honorable.” In the second reading from the Office of Readings, the Church gives us a beautiful text from a homily by St. Andrew of Crete (8th century Bishop). He writes:
Therefore, the cross is something wonderfully great and beautiful. It is great because through the cross the many noble acts of Christ found their consummation -very many indeed, for both his miracles and his sufferings were fully rewarded with victory. The cross is honorable because it is both the sign of God’s suffering and the trophy of his victory. It stands for his suffering because, on it, he freely suffered unto death. But it is also his trophy because it is the means by which the devil was wounded and death conquered; the barred gates of hell were smashed, and the cross became the one common salvation of the whole world.
These triumphant words remind us again of the centrality of the cross for the Christian life. We are invited to remember that Christ came into the world to embrace all human suffering and to suffer with each one of us personally. We truly have a compassionate God. The cross should remind us that there is always a path to reconciliation and new life, even in the darkest moments of life. The cross of Jesus is truly our greatest trophy.
Stat crux dum volvitur orbis (The cross stands while the world revolves). These words can be found underneath the emblem of the Carthusian Order of monks, which depicts a globe surrounded by a cross. The cross of Christ is truly the center of world history. It stands firm while all the world’s history and problems revolve around it. We are invited to make the mystery of the cross the anchor of our lives. If we are anchored to Jesus, we can truly survive and overcome all the storms of life.
