On the Holy Cross--His and Ours

I saw on Facebook a photograph of a protester in some march or other. The person wore a T-shirt that read: "When Jesus comes back, kill him again."

Why would someone clothe himself in a message of violent rejection of Jesus, unless he perceived that the bitterest suffering in his life came attached to that Name? As St Paul wrote to the Romans,  "Because of you, the name of God is blasphemed among the nations" (Rom. 2:24).

As I reflected on the sacrilegious (and genuinely blasphemous) message, I wondered what it really said about us, Jesus' declared followers. After all, not having left us orphans, Jesus is supposed to be living in us: we are meant to be His living presence, His Body in the world. If we were really doing our job in that regard, perhaps there wouldn't be trees enough in the world for all the crosses that would be needed to really "kill him again."

What is the next good step we can take, on this feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, to purify our words and actions so that we let Jesus really live in us; so that the followers of Jesus show to the world that "God so loved the world that He sent His only Son...not to condemn, but to save"?



Today we're invited to begin a 54-day Rosary novena (3  novenas of petition followed by 3  novenas of thanksgiving in anticipation of the grace sought) in view of the US Presidential elections (that's right, 54 days from now).