The Cross– World Youth Day (meditations for Africa)

The Cross is a sacrament so highly valued in our Church. It is a reminder that God, Himself, died for our sins. No other religion can make the same claim of having their God die for them. As such, Christians should value the thought of the cross. It is something we can boast of and treasure in our minds. It is a sacrifice that was not to be forgotten: it was not to be, it could not be. It must remain present, though past.

When Christ was crucified, this was a necessary act to appease the Divine Justice for the sins of mankind. It was sufficient to appease God for all the sins man could ever commit. After the crucifixion, Christ resurrected from the dead and ascended to heaven. Though Christ had ascended to glory the sacrifice is renewed daily and perpetuated.

Before He ascended to heaven, he promised to send the Holy Spirit. The Spirit descended upon the Church on Pentecost day. Thus was the birth of the Church or the Mystical Body of Christ. With the Church or the Mystical Body of Christ, the Son of God remained, in some manner, on earth. And His Sacrifice on the Cross continues. For there is always somewhere in the world where the Church is crucified…where His mystical Body is crucified. And the identification between Christ and the Mystical Body is so real that when St. Paul was still Saul, a persecutor of the Church, Christ appeared to him and asked him, “Why does thou persecutest Me.” Christ identified Himself with His Mystical Body! When Saul was persecuting the Church he was, in fact, persecuting Christ. And today, the world is crucifying the Church, thus still crucifying Christ. Though thou, O Christ, canst not suffer pain and death thou dost still subject thyself to indignity and persecutions.

Everyday Christ, in the Church, is still being crucified as sacramentally commemorated in the Mass. And John Henry Newman reminds us that the Crucifixion of Christ was not an event in the past. Christ’s death is ever present. It is ongoing today in the Holy Sacrifice of the mass. The mass reminds us of the past, on the ongoing sacrifice and the hope of eternal life in heaven with Christ as our priest forever.