The Cross and the Face of Christ

Here is the homily that I preached at Knock on Saturday, 14 September in the Chapel of the Apparition.

Glory in the Cross

“It is for us to glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ in whom is our health, life and Resurrection: through whom we have been saved and set free” (Introit).  Celebrating today the mystery of the Cross, we fix our gaze not upon an instrument of torture and of shame but, rather, upon the glorious Face of Christ and upon the Tree of Life whose leaves are for the healing of the nations (Apocalypse 22:2).  We lift our eyes to the royal throne of the King of glory, the sign of the Son of Man that will appear in the heavens at the end of the age (Matthew 24:30).  To the eyes of faith, the Cross, illuminated by the adorable Face of Jesus, shines  more brightly than the sun.

The Face of Christ

Fix your gaze upon the adorable Face of Our Lord Jesus Christ; contemplate the countenance that, from the earliest preaching of the Gospel, captivated believers, drawing them irresistibly into the love wherewith God first loved us. In the apse of ancient Christian basilicas, it was not uncommon to see an immense cross, worked in shimmering mosaic. The body of Christ was not depicted on the cross; instead, at the center of the cross, in a shining circle at the juncture of the vertical and horizontal beams, was an image of the Holy Face of Christ. The arms of the Cross converged in the Face of Christ, His most distinctive characteristic.

At the Centre of the Cross

The uniqueness of each human face expresses the uniqueness of each person’s identity. Our personal identity is linked to the image of our face, as on a photo ID card. By placing the Face of Christ at the center of the Cross, the artisans of old were suggesting that the Cross is the key to Christ’s identity and the Face of Christ the key to understanding the mystery of the Cross. Apart from the Cross, there is no knowledge of Christ, no understanding of His mission, no experience of His love, no way of answering the question put to Peter in today’s Gospel, “Who do you say that I am?” (Mk 8:29).

The Visible Sign of God’s Healing Mercy

The liturgy of today’s feast  infuses an awe-inspiring awareness of the Cross as the visible sign of God’s healing mercy, the cause of our indefectible and abiding joy.  “The Royal Banners forward go; the Cross shines forth in mystic glow” (Vexilla Regis, Vespers). The Church sings in today’s introit that the Cross of Christ is the source of health (salus), of life, and of Resurrection.  The eyes of the Church are filled with the brightness of the Cross.  She looks towards the wood of the Cross and is made radiant by the Resurrection.  Look to the Cross, and be radiant; let your faces not be abashed (Psalm 33:6)!

The Saving Wood

The wood of the tree by which Adam fell (Gn 3:12) is today the wood of the tree by which Adam is saved.  The wood of the ark by which Noah, “his sons, his wife, and his son’s wives” (Gn 6:14) were saved from the flood is today the wood by which joy has flooded the world.  The wood by which Moses sweetened the bitter waters of Marah (Ex 15:25) is today the wood by which all the world’s bitterness is made sweet.

Health to Sickly Souls Is Given

The First Lesson was a dramatic reminder that all of us, without exception, have suffered the venomous bite of the ancient serpent.  We cross the wilderness of this life limping, and burning with a fever for which no earthly remedy can be found.  Our new Moses, Christ, intercedes with the Father on our behalf and, in response, we are given the mystery of the Cross.  “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32).  The Cross, illumined by the Holy Face of Christ, is the source of our healing; it is the remedy for every affliction, the antidote for every poison, the medicine for every weakness.  One of the antiphons at Matins, rhythmically translated, says: “Cross most gracious / from whose aspect / health to sickly souls is given/ with what praises shall I praise thee / who hast brought us life from heaven?

When We Are Stung by Vipers

Like the children of Israel we have to be brought back to God again and again.  When we are strong and successful, when we “wax fat, grow thick, and become sleek” (Deuteronomy 32:15), how easily we forget the works of the Lord!  When we experience failure, sickness, loneliness, weakness, and sin, when we stumble, fall, and lose our way with darkness all about us, when we are stung by vipers and beset with fever and thirst, then do we turn back, led on by severe and tender mercies, to the source of all healing and strength.

The Holy Ghost and the Cross

The Cross is where the weakness of the flesh encounters the power of the Holy Ghost. It was from the Cross that the gift of the Holy Ghost was first poured out upon the Church in the kiss of the Bridegroom’s mouth and in a mystery of water and of blood.  “He bowed his head, says Saint John, and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30). Is there a more sublime depiction of the Holy Face than this, “He bowed his head and gave up his spirit”? And again, “one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water” (John 19:34).  The Face of Jesus serene and beautiful in death cannot be separated from the mystery of His pierced side.  The breath, the blood, and the water are the abiding signs of the Holy Ghost poured out whenever the Church assembles in faith at the foot of the holy and life-giving Cross.  The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is, at once, an actualization of the mystery of the Cross and an outpouring of the Holy Ghost.

Secure in the Arms of the Cross

Again, the Cross, illumined by the Holy Face of Jesus, is where every brokenness, injury, and wound encounters the compassion of the Father.  We are called not so much to embrace the Cross as to allow ourselves to be embraced by it, for the arms of the Cross are the strong arms of the Eternal Father’s compassion.  When the Holy Ghost begins to work in a soul, that soul is compelled to fix her eyes upon the Face of Jesus, and to throw herself into the arms of the Cross because there, and there alone, is she held secure in the embrace of the Father’s merciful love.  The Cross of the Son shines with the love of the Father reflected on the Face of the Son; therein is the remedy for every misery, shadow, weakness, betrayal, and fear.

Jacob’s Mystic Ladder

The glorious Cross is a Trinitarian mystery.  The healing compassion of the Father and the power of the Holy Ghost await us in the Cross of the Son.  By the Cross of Christ, as by the mystic ladder beheld by Jacob in a dream (Genesis 28:12) the mercy of the Father and the power of the Holy Ghost descend even to us.  By the same Cross of Christ, we ascend to the Father in the power of the Holy Ghost.  Jacob dreamed “that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.  And behold, the Lord stood above it” (Genesis 28:12).  This is the mystery of the Cross revealed in figure and foreshadowing; this is the reality of the mysteries we celebrate here and now.

The Place of Christ’s Priesthood

The Cross is the place of Christ’s glorious priesthood with its descending and ascending mediation.  Wheresoever and whensoever the liturgy is enacted, Christ the great High Priest stands in our midst, His Face is turned towards the Father, and his glorious Cross is rendered present.  Health and joy descend into the world — and into our hearts — by the wood of the Cross and, by the wood of the Cross, the ladder that spans the chasm separating time from eternity, and this world from the next, we who are estranged and exiled from the beauty of the divine glory ascend into the splendour of the Kingdom.

Holy Mass: Presence of the Cross 

The Cross and the Holy Face are — the Eucharistic Face of Jesus — are present in every Holy Mass, not as the memory of a hill far away, but as a dynamic reality drawing us together into unity and then, upward, to the Father, with the Son, in the Holy Ghost.  The Liturgy of the Word of God (the first part of Holy Mass) is always a preaching and a presence of the Word of the Cross, “folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).  The Liturgy of the Holy Sacrifice (the second part of Holy Mass) is always a confession and a presence of the mystery of the Cross in the fullness of its Trinitarian dimensions, and in the actualization of its power.

Through the Cross into the Kingdom

We have heard the Word of God. We have been illumined by a ray of light shining from the Face of Christ.   Held fast in the mystic embrace of the Cross, let us go to the altar.  Through the Word of the Cross, the compassion of the Father, the power of the Holy Ghost, and the brightness shining from the Face of the Son have descended into our midst; let us then, ascend, by the mystery of the Cross made present in this Holy Sacrifice, to the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost to whom be all glory and praise, now and always and unto the ages of ages.  Amen, Alleluia!