The Triumph of the Cross Revisited

Since I first attempted to write this reflection, Erika Kirk publically forgave the man who murdered her husband, she explicitly did so because Christ had forgiven her. This is the triumph of the Cross. This is the peace that only Christ can give, a peace that comes at the expense of blood. We need the peace that Erika humbly unveiled in that stadium. So, those who read these writings, please forgive me for rewriting this piece. Her witness enfleshed what I was trying to say and brought it into focus.. Please allow me to share this with you now.

Erika's act of forgiveness reveals the triumph of the Cross. This definitive victory over evil rings out in the prayer of the Church whenever we choose to live by faith. In the Mass, especially, the triumph of the Cross is manifest when the Church reverently commingles the blood of the faithful with the blood of Christ through a mystical act of prayer. The Mass, in fact, takes to whole Church to the mystery of the Cross so that in the sorrows and trials of life, we might find strength to believe in his surpassing love. I think of the last Mass that Charlie went with Erika to. Erika tasted the mystery of the Cross in prayer, and her act of forgiveness revealed its power. Erika follows Christ. She offers a fresh spiritual way of thinking, and if we would drink from the source that gave her this wisdom, we must, with Erika, look to the Cross of Christ.

We live in the midst of a terrible battle against evil in America and the Cross is our only hope. My heart turns to the chldren and families of Annunication parish just before the Mass. How can we not think of those parents, classmates, teachers, and families? The stories of so many lives taken so senselessly cannot make sense. Yet through the prayer of faith the blood of Christ infuses new meaning into the blood of those whose lives are joined to His for He has joined Himself to every man. This is true in a special way for those whose blood, like his, was violently shed. At Mass, Christ Himself takes up the blood and tears of the whole Church, in his saving mission - so all that is good, beautiful and true about our humanity should not pass away, but should become an eternal offering for the glory of the Father. Such offerings are meaningful to God and evoke His blessings anew to make up what is lacking in the sufferings of Chirst for the building up of the Church and the salvation of the world. And we need these blessings if we are to contend with the ways that evil constantly sifts, consumes and poisons our hearts.

The Cross triumphs over the evil that would sift us. To His closest followers, the Lord reveals that our battle is not against human forces but with dark principalities and spiritual powers. When Satan claimed those closest to the Lord to sift them like wheat, the Savior fought for their freedom and dignity even as they betrayed, denied and abandoned Him to humiliation and death. His death on the Cross was for them first of all. Is there someone in your life who has betrayed or denied or abandoned their faith? As members of Christ's mystical body, our job is not to sit in judgment over them, but to pray for them and to offer up our own sufferings for them until Christ frees them from the claim that Satan has made over them.

The Cross triumphs over the brutality of evil that consumes young men. In our own time, prowling lions have consumed our young Cains, while Abel's Blood cries out even louder than their gunshots. To quell the wrath of Cain and renew hope for humanity, the Son of the Father receives the cries of those whose life has been cut short by the rage of the violent and joins them to His own that He offers to the Father. And the Father, for love of His only Begotten, hears the plight of our grieving hearts and is not indifferent. Armies of heaven already engage the fray and the Just Judge comes to judge the living and the dead. For everyone who asks, mercy awaits, but woe to us if we have not welcomed this hungry, thirsty, naked and lonely judge. Woe to us if we will not forgive in the face of how much is forgiven us. So with young angry men, we must not leave them alone to their own thoughts, to seeking love on a computer, but instead we must find ways to challenge them out of the merely comfortable, and to help them with the terrifying demons that threaten them.

The Cross also triumphs over the poisoned lies of the Evil One who would sow irrational divisions among us. The Crucified One knows that we are attacked by vipers in the middle of the wilderness of this life. Serpents poison us with all kinds of anxiety and resentment until our innermost being suffers such disturbances as to lose all sense of self and purpose before God. So has Christ been raised up on the Cross. Looking on Him who we have pierced, we remember who we are and our proper place in life. Poisoness judgments and lies lose their power. We are healed as we gaze on Him. Under his banner, we are no longer scattered, but made one. This is where I give Charlie so much credit. Having watched a few of his videos, he always attempted to be respectful but he also challenged any false peace that comes from a bad judgment. In speaking the truth with love, we will often be rejected and even misrepresented, but it is worth the risk when we consider the healing and freedom that the truth gives a soul.

Christ's Cross reveals the transcendence of divine power over human affairs and the immanence of his presence continually implicates itself in our plight. This is true even in afluent materialist societies, even in the most advanced technocracy. His crucified love defies every effort to divide, to manipulate and to oppress. This love is real food and spiritual medicine for those who are sick of worldliness and starve for meaningful sustenance.'Those who forgive their enemies and love their persecutors have been fed with this manna, and their hearts know a strength stronger than death.

The Cross of Christ protects against storms of destruction from within and without. Not only do we suffer from our own interior restlessness and inner discord, the constant nudging of our technocracy prods us into toxic ideological stands that fail to bear the weight of our existence. Behind the scenes, power hungry bureaucrats and profit taking social engineers pull our strings, throw shadows on our walls, excite anxious resentment, and keep us suspicious about what is really going on. Its a great diversion to distract us from the dark prison we have made for ourselves. If we want freedom, we must not be afraid to question and discuss the blame games and narratives of victimhood being peddled in our political and educational institutions. If we will reclaim our dignity, we must raise our eyes to the standard that stands at the still point of human existence - and learn from Him how to forgive. It is by gazing on the One who dangles between heaven and earth that we find the only pathway forward for our society. When we allow His love into our hearts, we make space in our families and communities for a new and more meaningful life together.

Political narratives are mostly 2blind to such a humble God. These myths are the walls of a prison caging society into the merely material, the factual, the system. The true God, however, is at once above, beneath and beyond all of this, closer to us than we are to ourselves, hidden until we ask for Him, until we seek Him, until He shows Himself and we find Him. For those who dare to pray, who dare to embrace the triumph of the Cross, they see that ours is an age of unrequited love, of Divine Love who longs to be loved but is never lessened for this longing. Soul's such as Erika's see an age of empty ache, pining away in lonely meaninglessness because we love Love so little. Against this lack of love, materialistic narratives serve only as an opium, a numbing escape, for those who restlessly ache for Him but lack the courage to look up and suffer what He reveals. Erika's witness is a wake up call: it is long past time to rise from this spiritual slumber and to seek Him who seeks us so much the more.

While many argued with Charlie about political and social issues, the real issue for him was his faith. He knew that we must seek Him in truth because it matters what we worship. The heart needs the sacred. If it does not find what is truly holy, the heart will worship as sacred that which is merely profane. Here, our social narratives become religious myths that spiritualize the material until even the most absurd political ideologies replace revealed truth. Technocracy's masses build altars to machines until they become as inhumane as that which they worship. Violence, discord, and strife are the fruit of bad religion. This, it seems to me, is what Charlie was fighting against and this is also what raised its ugly head against him.

If Charlie was adamant in his arguments, especially in his words to young men, he was convinced that the heart is made for an existence beyond the banal. If some found it provocative, he exposed the flaws of many materialist narratives. He had figured out that the heart withers when is treated and indeed, sees itself, as if only a cog in the wheel of progress. He worked to help the next generation resist the gravitational force of such superficiality. He taught a struggle against boorishness, against a victim mentality, and challenged us to confront callous pride and this to the point of bloodshed. If his words challenged the status quo, he was convinced that to rise to the plane of a meaningful existence, a life truly worth living, one must be lifted up to a purpose and mission, to worthy sacrifice and right worship, to all that love demands. The Good News of Jesus Christ offers exactly this, and his wife helped us to understand that Charlie put his life on the line to make this known.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said that one sees rightly only with the heart. Erika sees with these eyes. It is well past time for us to open the eyes of our hearts too. If we live in a time of grave social distress, if a marked lack of peace has grabbed hold of our communities, of the hearts of our young men, then this is also a time of extraordinary grace. In fact, many young men feel called to renounce their secular careers and to enter the service of Christ. Erika's act will only stir more hearts to great generosity and so something new is opening up in our midst. With eyes wide open, we see that the risk we need to take is worth it, and we find in Christ the courage to follow Him.

The Crucified God challenges us to take off the blinders of material ideologies and to renounce the pleasure we find in the self-righteous indignation they solicit. He who reveals the face of the Father dares us to open our eyes to what is spiritual until an astonished silence seizes us, Just as there is a felt solidarity when spouses gaze into each other's eyes, a moving stillness when a mother first sees her newborn, an aching silence when a dying friend offers a final glance, contemplation of the Cross can circumscribe our frail existence with eternal truth. Those who dare to open themselves to these deeper truths soon discover how little we measure and how much we are measured by what is really real. If we fall short of what we desire when see Him, what we desire remains as good and beautiful as ever. Here, the most honest among us long to be delivered from all that holds us back from that for which we were made.

How do we open the eyes of our hearts? What does this look like? This is where Erika and Charlie were important witnesses to us. Erika said that she forgave because it is what Charlie would have wanted. Even more, she said that she forgave because she herself was forgiven, and that she did not want to face the Just Judge with blood on her hands. This forgiveness, this decision against vengeance and resentment, this is an act of faith, this is an opening of the eyes of the heart, this is the decision to believe in more than what is materially visible and measurable. It is the decision to believe in the love of God. This is the beginning of real prayer, true worship.

For those souls who dare to forgive, dare to open the eyes of their hearts, to hope in the face of materialism, to dare to yearn that what cannot be measured be the measure of man, the Father is acting in great power to overcome the darkness.. If in this post-Christian world shadows of divine light still linger on a humanity subject to death, if this light shines on both brothers who kill and who are killed, this new Light is one that no evil, not even the dark dialectics or ideologies of technocracy, can overcome. This living Light grants the gaze of love known to faith, and those who take the risk of belief in this Light are illlumined both in relation to God and to one another. For those who with Christ have suffered the loss of all things, this light gives understanding even when one's own heart has fallen in a pit of doubt. This shining brightness helps us find ground to stand on even when the whole world has been shaken from under us. This is because this light is the One who has made his dwelling among us, the Word who emptied and humbled Himself to implicate Himself in our plight.

Through the words of a widow, America is given a glance of the Triumph of the Cross. While many discuss those who wrestle with God, there is also a God who wrestles against death and the powers of darkness. And a single word of mercy makes Him known. Blessed are those who allowed themselves to be his witnesses as He battles against meaninglessness, as He fights despair, as He struggles to help us find hope. If you seek Him, this God is gazed upon only under cruciform shadow, and his wordless cry is his last word to a world that rejects Him. Yet no rejection or humiliation can sway His purpose, for who can stand against Him? Before Him, all hostility to God is exhausted and in his suffering, He bears away sin. He attacks the kingdom of hell and He has shattered its gates. His enemies flee before Him while this Victor leads a host of captives to freedom. By his own death, He takes captive sin and death. And those who march under His banner join their hearts to His in triumph, Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi: quia per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum.