TRIUMPH OF THE CROSS
by Fr Jim Whalen
1997, Issue 1
“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whoever believes in Him may have Eternal Life.” (JN, 14-15)
The ‘Bronze Serpent’ is used today as a symbol by the healing profession to denote their purpose...to protect and save life, to be at the service of life. This is expressed in the Hippocratic Oath (400 BC). ‘I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner, I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion; with purity and with holiness, I will pass my life and practice my art.'
In this season, we celebrate the Triumph of the Cross, when Jesus drove away darkness and brought in the light, with the gift, the ransom of His life for our life. He who wins the cross possesses a treasure, for we are lifted up with the crucified Christ. In it, through it, our salvation, what we have lost, is restored to us.
We are challenged to be disciples of life, to join Jesus in his greatest triumph, to follow Him to the pulpit of the cross. Life was sentenced to death on the cross of Calvary by man. Death was put to death on the cross of Calvary by Christ.
Jesus was the only one who came to this world to die for us. Everyone else came to live. Why is it so many today deny this fact? Why is it so many today deny life to the innocent and weak? "Before man are life and death. Which-ever he chooses shall be given him." (SIR 15, 17). The Triumphant Cross questions mankind today about our choosing.
How far can power go in the world? Power ends in it’s own destruction, for those who slew the foe, lost the day. Evil may have it’s hour but God will have His day. He is a God of Mercy and Justice. The darkness in the world today gives primacy to will over reason. It teaches first the action, then the rationalization of the action. Do what you please then try to find justification. Use power to attain your goal then find or make laws to support your position.
Modern philosophy and modern laws make the will primary and have reason as it’s servant. This is an eclipse of reason and will. This ‘will without reason’, is will to power. Reason has no function that would determine the targets or goals of life or the will that shoots the arrows.
Why does God permit Satan, evil and sin, to nail innocent life, justice to a tree. The risen Christ answers that sin having done its worst might exhaust itself and be overcome by love that is stronger than either sin or death. The basis of our hope is not in any construct of human power but in the power of the Triumphant Cross, where Christ gave to evil it’s own mortal wound.
We have great hope in Christ’s Triumphant Cross for darkness is not final except to those who are without God. The heart has a need of emptying and need of being filled. "God emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave." (PHIL 2:7). The power of emptying is human, seen in the love of others. The power of filling belongs to God. This calls us to exclaim: "Not my will but yours be done Lord; what you will, when you will. Let it be soon. We choose life from the moment of conception until natural death." Let us lift high the cross, the means to protect and save human life so that we may multiply, magnify and glorify the Lord. ¤
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