The Crucifixion

from Venerable Fulton J. Sheen

Our Lord spent 30 years of His life obeying, three years teaching, three hours redeeming! But how did He redeem? Suppose a golden chalice is stolen from an altar and beaten into a large ash tray. Before that gold can be returned to the altar, it must be thrown into a fire, where the dross is burned away; then the chalice must be recast, and finally blessed and restored to its holy use.

Sinful man is like that chalice which was delivered over to profane uses. He lost his Godlike resemblance and his high destiny as a child of God. So our blessed Lord took unto Himself a human nature, making it stand for all of us, plunged it into the fires of Calvary to have the dross of sin burned and purged away. Then, by rising from the dead, he became the new head of the new humanity, according to which we are all to be patterned.

The cross reveals that unless there is a Good Friday in our lives, there will never be an Easter Sunday. Unless there is a cross of thorns, there will never be the halo of light. Unless there is the scourged body, there will never be a glorified one. Death ot the lower self is the condition of resurrection to the higher self.

The world says to us, as it said to Him on the cross: “Come down, and we will believe!” But if He had come down, He never would have saved us. It is human to come down; it is divine to hang there. A broken heart, O Saviour of the world, is love’s best cradle! Smite my own, as Moses did the rock, that Thy love may enter in!

The Resurrection