Mar 10 Sun
Today's Sunday liturgy begins with the word: Laetare—"Rejoice!", a call to spiritual joy.
Christ explains thoroughly the meaning of the Cross to Nicodemus. The Cross is the new, definitive revelation of God. For the whole of Israel, God was above all a judge, who rewards and punishes. The God, of whom Jesus speaks, is the God of love.
St Paul today repeats twice: "by grace you have been saved", even when we were dead through our trespasses.
What is Grace? "It is a gift of God." A gift is given when there is love. And Love is revealed by means of the Cross. Love, revealed by means of the Cross, is precisely Grace. God's innermost face is revealed in it. He is not just the judge. He is the Father who wishes the world to be saved and to understand the meaning of the Cross.
To understand it, it is necessary to become a changed man. But Christ also speaks of a judgment: the Cross saves and at the same time judges. It judges differently. It judges more deeply. "For everyone who does evil hates the light"... just that stupendous light that comes from the Cross!... And he who does what is true comes to the light" (Jn 3:20-21).
That man comes to the Cross. He submits to the requirements of grace. He wants to be bound by that unutterable gift of God. He wants it to give meaning to his whole life. This man feels in the Cross the voice of God who addresses his sons on this earth with an invocation of hope. The Cross is the invocation of hope.
We must ask ourselves these fundamental questions which flow to us from the Cross. What am I doing in order to know God better? This God, who revealed Christ to us. Who is he for me? What place does he occupy in my aspirations, in my life?
Let us question ourselves about our love for the Cross. Has God already become for me just marginal? Has his name been covered up in my soul with a lot of other names and interests? Has it been trodden underfoot, like that seed which "fell along the path"? Have I inwardly renounced redemption by means of the Cross of Christ, putting in its place other purely temporal, partial, and superficial remedies?
And let us humbly confess our faults, our shortcomings, our indifference with regard to this Love which was revealed on the Cross. And at the same time let us renew ourselves in the spirit with the great desire for Life, the Life of Grace, which continually raises man, strengthens him, commits him. That grace which gives our existence on earth its full dimension.
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