The Holy Cross and the Holy Priesthood

Notes from a sermon preached before the Saint Thomas More Chapter of the Society of the Holy Cross (SSC) at Saint Mary the Virgin Church, Delray Beach, Florida, 23 January 2008.

God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.

The mystery of the Cross hearkens back to the story told by the patron saint of parish priests, Saint John Vianney: the old man in the church kneeling before the crucifix – ‘what are you doing here?’ The response: ‘I just look up at Him and He looks back at me.’

We preach Jesus Christ and Him Crucified – His banner over us is love.
On the Cross of Christ, on Mount Calvary, we see Jesus as He behold us, for the Cross is the fulfillment of all life and of all history. God beholds us from the Cross in love of that humanity He offers for our salvation.

As Christ stretches His arms of love out on the Cross – He unites God and Man and spans the centuries by reconciling all things in heaven and earth. Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, reigns from the Cross as our Mediator and Advocate, the Pontifex Maximus, the great BRIDGE-BUILDER, who fills the gap and chasm between God and Man in redemptive sacrifice. He builds the bridge we cross to God because He alone is God and Man and makes them both one.

The ordained Catholic priest is also the Pontifex Maximus, the great Bridge Builder, because he shares in Christ’s unique priesthood. As Pope John Paul II reflects on this in his book Gift and Mystery - the priest prostrates himself before God on the floor of the church at the litany in his ordination, and in so doing he takes on the sign of the BRIDGE; he lays his life down in obedience, as did Christ, that he may serve as the bridge by which the People of God cross over the eternal life.

We priests of the Catholic Church of Christ continue and extend the work of Christ and His Cross in space and time. We are ‘sacrificing priests’ – the sacrifice of our lives is to be united with the Lord’s sacrifice, the unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass. Like Christ, we learn obedience by the things that we suffer, as Hebrews tell us. We are sacrificing priests, and the first thing we are called to sacrifice is ourselves, our personal ambitions, ideologies and agendas, we are called to offer the sacrifice of obedience which Our Lord offered.

The Cross is the School of Sanctity, the place where we begin to love, to serve, to adore, to follow Christ. As Our Lord prays in S. John 17, at the Cross we sanctify ourselves so that others might be sanctified. God is glorified on the Cross – seeming defeat, failure is ultimate victory.

We are reminded that the Church was at one time the embryonic Church gathered at the Foot of the Cross, the first band of disciples; on Calvary the Church was down to two members – Our Lady and Saint John. From that humble Church the world has been saved.

Obedience, the Cross, is the way of salvation. The Cross is the New Tree of Life, Calvary is the New Paradise, the New Garden of Eden, Christ Jesus is the New Man, the New Humanity – of the New Adam is born the Church, the New Eve, born from the side of Christ as the water and blood flow. The Dominical Sacraments that save us also flow from the side of Christ, the water of baptism and the blood of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.

Our Lady, the Mother of the Church and Queen of Martyrs, bravely stands with fortitude at the Foot of the Cross as the supreme exemplar of Christian discipleship.

Saint John the beloved disciple shows us the way to Christ as he keeps vigil at the Fountain of grace and salvation.

From the Cross we see Jesus Christ, not merely the humiliated Son of Mary, but the victorious Son of God, the King of creation and Lord of the world, Christus Victor, the Conqueror of sin, Satan, and death. In ancient images of the Crucified we see Him in Eucharistic Vestments on the Cross as He offers the one spotless oblation of man’s peace. We priests are privileged to offer the same Sacrifice, wearing the same Vestments, reproducing on Catholic altars the same mystery of our redemption.

The fruit of the Cross is the Mass, the making-present of the Lord, the Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood, the gift of Confession and Absolution, and all the Sacraments of the New Covenant, Christ’s supreme gift to us won on Calvary for his body and bride, his holy people, the Church.

‘Dig a pit for the Cross,’ cried that wonderful and blessed saint of the Anglican Catholic tradition, Father Alexander Mackonochie. That is our vocation, to make the Cross present in the world, to make a place in our hearts of love for the Cross to shine forth in its splendour and power.

We are the Heralds of the Cross, and our apostolic labours as priests, as alter Christus, another Christ, are to make Christ known, loved and adored – we are to be the sign of Christ’s redemptive love for mankind.

God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ!