Daily Retreat 09/14/07
2007 Sep 14 Fri: EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS F
Nm 21: 4b-9/ Ps 77(78): 1bc-2. 34-35. 36-37. 38/ Phil 2: 6-11/ Jn 3: 13-17
From today’s readings: “Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.... Do not forget the works of the Lord!... Christ Jesus, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.... Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.”
The Triumph of the Cross
The Cross of Christ is such a paradox - the most barbarian instrument of torture and suffering, now converted into the Savior’s sign of hope, comfort, and ultimate victory. God, who in His omnipotence could have saved us in any number of ways, chose, in His wisdom, to unfurl His banner of victorious love in the most least likely locale. What does it all mean?
In the darkest hour, engulfed in deepest despair, amidst coldest cruelty and vilest villainy, surrounded even by heartless hearts, in such situations from which one would concede God Himself had been completely banished - there, even there, and especially there, the Cross of Christ alone can stand again triumphant, but only when those now charged with carrying a cross dare to raise it anew as the banner of God’s victorious love!
Sequence for the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross
The Cross, the icon of Christianity,
Redeemer’s exulted banner of victory!
Yet in the beginning, this Wood was loser’s logo, expression of perdition -
even Paul muses on the Old Law’s malediction:
“Cursed is he who hangs on a tree!” (Gal 3:13, Deut 21:23).
In transforming the sign of defeat into the sign of victory,
Christ vanquishes all sin and sorrow, defeat and drudgery,
and molds all such dross into His own victorious Cross!
How can this be?
How can what harms become what heals?
How can what shames become what thrills?
Once long ago, in the day of Moses, such paradox was prefigured:
the venomous serpent, very biblical embodiment of evil, was transfigured -
death-dealing token of torture, set in bronze cast, raised upon a mast -
all who gazed were amazed
as God raised the death-bitten to new life!
Then His turn came, and He obeyed - Stripping immortality,
Christ emptied Himself, for you, and for me.
Begotten as Master, yet born as a slave,
Word made flesh, laid manifest in a cave!
Then His hour came, and He obeyed -
Putting on mortality,
Christ humbled Himself, for you, and for me.
And ours was the loss, He embraced on that Cross!
Because of this, God exulted Him greatly
and bestowed on Him that Name most stately
so at the name of Jesus, every knee bends,
those above, those below, to earth’s farthest ends,
and all tongues confess Jesus Christ the Lord,
the glorious Father’s everlasting Word!
Yes, God so loved the world He gave His only Son,
not to condemn the world, but to be the One
to save the world and rid us all
of pains of death from Adam’s fall.
All who gazed were amazed
as God raised the death-smitten to new life!
Now never can Christ’s Cross denote defeat
sin is vanquished, death is beat,
all sin, all sorrow, all pain, all loss
has been surmounted by that exulted Cross!
Nm 21: 4b-9/ Ps 77(78): 1bc-2. 34-35. 36-37. 38/ Phil 2: 6-11/ Jn 3: 13-17
From today’s readings: “Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.... Do not forget the works of the Lord!... Christ Jesus, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.... Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.”
The Triumph of the Cross
The Cross of Christ is such a paradox - the most barbarian instrument of torture and suffering, now converted into the Savior’s sign of hope, comfort, and ultimate victory. God, who in His omnipotence could have saved us in any number of ways, chose, in His wisdom, to unfurl His banner of victorious love in the most least likely locale. What does it all mean?
In the darkest hour, engulfed in deepest despair, amidst coldest cruelty and vilest villainy, surrounded even by heartless hearts, in such situations from which one would concede God Himself had been completely banished - there, even there, and especially there, the Cross of Christ alone can stand again triumphant, but only when those now charged with carrying a cross dare to raise it anew as the banner of God’s victorious love!
Sequence for the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross
The Cross, the icon of Christianity,
Redeemer’s exulted banner of victory!
Yet in the beginning, this Wood was loser’s logo, expression of perdition -
even Paul muses on the Old Law’s malediction:
“Cursed is he who hangs on a tree!” (Gal 3:13, Deut 21:23).
In transforming the sign of defeat into the sign of victory,
Christ vanquishes all sin and sorrow, defeat and drudgery,
and molds all such dross into His own victorious Cross!
How can this be?
How can what harms become what heals?
How can what shames become what thrills?
Once long ago, in the day of Moses, such paradox was prefigured:
the venomous serpent, very biblical embodiment of evil, was transfigured -
death-dealing token of torture, set in bronze cast, raised upon a mast -
all who gazed were amazed
as God raised the death-bitten to new life!
Then His turn came, and He obeyed - Stripping immortality,
Christ emptied Himself, for you, and for me.
Begotten as Master, yet born as a slave,
Word made flesh, laid manifest in a cave!
Then His hour came, and He obeyed -
Putting on mortality,
Christ humbled Himself, for you, and for me.
And ours was the loss, He embraced on that Cross!
Because of this, God exulted Him greatly
and bestowed on Him that Name most stately
so at the name of Jesus, every knee bends,
those above, those below, to earth’s farthest ends,
and all tongues confess Jesus Christ the Lord,
the glorious Father’s everlasting Word!
Yes, God so loved the world He gave His only Son,
not to condemn the world, but to be the One
to save the world and rid us all
of pains of death from Adam’s fall.
All who gazed were amazed
as God raised the death-smitten to new life!
Now never can Christ’s Cross denote defeat
sin is vanquished, death is beat,
all sin, all sorrow, all pain, all loss
has been surmounted by that exulted Cross!
posted by FrPitstick | 9/12/2007
<< Home