Hail, O Cross, Our Only Hope!

By Silvia Holgado

September 13th, 2022 - Fall Newsletter I Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center

Photo showing Via Dolorosa (Via Crucis) in Jerusalem

In the next liturgical feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14th), we are invited to look at the cross as the privileged place in which God's love is manifested to us. What other meaning could there be in worshiping an instrument of death?

On the cross, the misery of man and the mercy of God meet.

On the cross, the misery of man and the mercy of God meet. Adoring this unlimited mercy is for man the only way to open himself to the mystery that the cross reveals.

The cross is planted in the ground and seems to have its roots in human malice, but it projects upwards towards heaven. Through the cross of Christ, the evil one has been defeated, death has been defeated, life has been transmitted to us, hope has been restored to us, and light has been communicated to us. O crux, ave spes unica!

Saint Paul the Apostle says: "We preach Christ crucified: a scandal to the Jews, foolishness to the Gentiles" (1 Cor 1:23). But Christians do not exalt any cross, but the cross that Jesus sanctified with his sacrifice, fruit, and testimony of immense love. Christ on the cross shed all his blood to free humanity from the slavery of sin and death. Therefore, the cross has been transformed from a sign of curse into a sign of blessing, from a symbol of death into a symbol par excellence of Love that overcomes hatred and violence and engenders immortal life. O crux, ave spes unica! Hail, O Cross, our only hope!

...O crux, ave spes unica! Hail, O Cross, our only hope!