Saturday, May 13, 2017

Parable and Conscience Meditation May 12

Glorious Cross  May 12

In Hoc Signo Vinces – In This Sign You Will Conquer (Crosier motto).

It is said that it was in a vision before a battle that the Emperor Constantine in the 4th century saw Christ, who commanded him to paint crosses in the form of an “X” on the shields of his soldiers.  The legend says that he later saw in the sky the words “In this sign you will conquer.”  His mother, St. Helena, according to the legend, discovered the True Cross of Christ in the Holy Land at the beginning of the same century.  Whatever the truthfulness of these tales, the legends testify to the passion of Christians for the symbol of the Cross down through the centuries.  To find the meaning of the Cross, in the spirit of St. Helena, is to discover the heart of Christian teaching.  It is the Good News of the Church, despite the objections of Jew and Greek for whom the Cross was scandal and foolishness respectively.  To live by the power of the Cross, in the spirit of Constantine, is the essence of New Testament spirituality.  The life of the Church is defined by the dynamic of the Paschal Mystery.  The power of the Gospel is in the Glorious Cross, the only sign of victory over the forces of evil in the world.  In effect, every Christian is a Helena who unearths for self and others the Cross of Jesus as the most precious treasure in the field of human existence.  Each Christian is also a Constantine who projects the sign of the Cross on the horizons of persons and communities as the only hope in the struggle for the renewal of human life.

The only value of a jug is in its contents.  (Burundi)

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