Crucifix-or-the-Resurrection-Cross

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A Mormon lady came into our Chapel one day and sat down below the Crucifix above the Altar. I was the only one in the Chapel with her at the time, and so I thought in my ignorance. I gave her space. But when she started to weep, I had to go over to her, sit next to her. We did not say much. She looked at me and pointed to the Crucifix. With tears in her eyes, in the presence of the Saints, with Saint Therese of Lisieux she said this:

“Why can’t we just forgive each other”

God would turn the world around to find suffering in order to give it to a soul upon whom He has set His Divine gaze with ineffable love.

~Saint Therese of Lisieux

You will not find an empty Cross of Crucifix anywhere in a Mormon Church. I am confident to say that this woman appreciated the Crucifix in ours.

The Crucifix is a beautiful thing and I give God thanks every day that we have it front and center in our Church. Where our faith is not watered down, cleaned up all nice and neat.

All the greatest pains become sweet for whoever looks at Jesus Christ on the Cross.

~Saint Mary Magdalen of Pazzi

What happened on the Cross is the greatest act of love for all. There is no need to rush the resurrection by placing the resurrected Christ on the Cross in order to be more comfortable, not offend those who do not yet get it. Those who may not be Catholic as not to offend them or possibly chase them away. There is a reason why the pews do not have cushions. Lest we get to comfortable.

The crosses with which our path through life is strewn associate us with Jesus in the mystery of His crucifixion. ~ St. John Eudes

I spent 14 years helping with the RCIA and giving tours of our Church in Northern Utah. Mostly Mormons who were curious, wanting to know what was inside our walls. What most wanted to see and understand was why we would have a Crucifix in our Church. They honestly came to learn, to go deeper. I was blessed to be able to speak about the Crucifix. On one tour a young Mormon women’s group came through out of the blue.

When we got them under the Crucifix, I could ask them “How does this make you feel?

It would become quiet. You could almost hear a feather strike the ground.

After which one said, “it makes me feel sad” a girl behind her softly says “it should” another “it makes me think of forgiveness” and the best one I was gifted to hear out loud. “Why don’t we have that in our Church”

Ponder that for a moment.

All the greatest pains become sweet for whoever looks at Jesus Christ on the Cross.

~Saint Mary Magdalen of Pazzi

Under the Crucifix is where I saw hearts inflamed. What do you think people who have never stepped into a catholic Church want to see? What they see in their own Churches? No.

~Saint Francis de Sales wrote:

“Mount Calvary is the mount of lovers. All love that takes not its beginning from Our Savior's Passion is frivolous and dangerous. Unhappy is death without the love of the Savior, unhappy is love without the death of the Savior! Love and death are so mingled in the Passion of Our Savior that we cannot have the one in our heart without the other. Upon Calvary one cannot have life without love, nor love without the death of Our Redeemer. But, except there, all is either eternal death or eternal love: and (all Christian wisdom consists in choosing rightly).”

We should not be too quick to get to the Easter feast to fast. Do we not have Confessions to give? That which makes Easters Victory sweeter?

Mother Teresa reminds us that “Without patience, we will learn less in life. We will see less. We will feel less. We will hear less. Ironically, rush and more usually mean less.”

God placed a good bit of Eater into each Holy Mass as not to get discouraged on or journey to the Cross. To have the resurrection obscure Christ Crucified at or above our Holy Altars lacks in patience. It makes no sense. Christ did not resurrect from the Cross. He died on the Cross for the sins of the world. Jesus rose according to the Scriptures three days later from the Tomb. Jesus was born to die for each one of us, to wipe away our sins. To reconcile us with His Father. This being His sole mission. As Catholics we follow Paul’s example and counsel. Remember that it was he who wrote, “We, for our part, preach a crucified Christ; to the Jews indeed a stumbling block and to the Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor 1:23-25).

The Crucifixion is, as St. Francis de Sales calls it, “the academy of love”

“The Crucifix should remind us that even the darkness is not without hope”

Pope John Paul II wrote:

“The cross means there is no shipwreck without hope; there is no dark without dawn; nor storm without heaven.”

If in our suffering, spending time with the suffering Christ, we do not see the hope of the Resurrection we may be missing the whole point of why we need the Crucifix at the Altar front and center.

“You accepted patiently and humbly the rebuffs of human life, as well as the torture of the cross. Help us to accept the pains and conflicts that come to us each day as opportunity to grow as people and become more like you-make us realize that it is only by frequent deaths of ourselves, and our self-centered desires that we can come to live more fully, only by dying with you that we can rise with you.”

~Mother Teresa

Let me end with this story:

On the spur of the moment, I walked into a reformed Episcopalian church to give them one of the crucifixes that I make. The two women working in the church office greeted me. I said, “I would love for you to have this crucifix for your office as a gift.”

The older woman told me that they could not accept it, because they were focused on the resurrection of Christ, not on His death. She said that they could accept a cross without Jesus on it. An empty cross. I told them that I would return with another cross. Because I make them, I could do that. They accepted my offer. As I was leaving, I realized that I had accidently left the crucifix behind. As I walked back in to retrieve it, not knowing, God changed my course and I returned to my car. I would get it when I came back with the empty cross.

When I returned a few days later, I brought them a cross that I had made with these words on the cross’s beam: “I AM with you always.” No body of Christ on this one. I too had fallen into a new age modern type of thinking in making such a Cross.

Only the younger women was in the office. The crucifix was still on her desk. I gave her the new, empty cross. As I reached down to pick up the crucifix, she grabbed it first and held it close to her heart. We looked at each other for a second or two. I set the empty cross on her desk; she placed the crucifix in her top drawer.

If in our suffering, spending time with the suffering Christ, we do not see the hope of the Resurrection we may be missing the whole point of why we need the Crucifix at the Altar front and center.

Crucifix or the Resurrection Cross above the Altar?

“All Christian wisdom consists in choosing rightly”

~Rich Horrell

Crucifix or the Resurrection Cross above the Altar?

“All Christian wisdom consists in choosing rightly”

~ St. Francis of Sales

I have never felt alone while spending time under the shadow of the Crucifix. Nor have I ever felt alone at a loved one’s grave. The whole earth stands under the shadow of the Crucifix.