This Sunday we celebrate the Triumph of the Cross. This is an ancient feast, and gives us an opportunity to pray and ponder on the mystery of the cross.
In our homes and schools we see the crucifix so often that perhaps its full significance has become dulled by constant familiarity. The earliest Christians and their non-Christian neighbours would have been far more aware of what the cross meant. For those outside the Church the cross was the most vicious instrument of torture that the Romans had ever invented. Its victims died exposed and in agony. For the Jews the cross held even more horror - the book of Deuteronomy held that ‘cursed is he who hangs on a tree’. For the early Christians however the cross had turned the world upside down. It had become the tree of life and the means of salvation.
The cross turns our world upside down too. It challenges our success-obsessed society. The kingdom of God is established not through strength but through weakness. This feast has much to teach us, and we are called to immerse ourselves in its mystery. Two thousand years on we can still celebrate the fact that ‘Lord, by your cross and resurrection, you have set us free. You are the saviour of the world’. P.D.