Of Airports and Crosses

I travel frequently. I will not say doing so is a cross- it does not compare to what others carry – but I do confess that boarding and disembarking from airplanes is not one of my favorite activities. Nevertheless, it’s part of my life as a bishop. I know airport security routine really well. I take off my shoes, and my belt; and from my back-pack I quickly I take out the plastic bag with the 3.4-ounce liquids. Careful not to cause a delay in the waiting line, I approach the enormous Star Trek style, bubble-like machine so TSA employees can run the scan. They always tell me the same thing: Wait here to the side. Without fail they pat down my chest area looking for the curious object detected under my black shirt. It is the Cross I always wear, a crucifix I have used for more than 30 years, which my father once wore. I am used to taking it out so that the security guards can see it, but they inspect me meticulously either way. Soon they let me pass.  

I ask myself, why don’t I take the Cross off before passing the security line? It would be more convenient, and I would avoid the regular delays. But no, by instinct of grace, or because I am stubborn – who can judge his own case? – I don’t take it off. I resist taking off the Cross because it’s not like a hat or a belt. In some way, being Christian means feeling the cross is an essential part of our very selves And that kind of thing cannot be taken off to avoid a few extra minutes in the security line. 

What does it mean to love Christ’s Cross? It means to reciprocate the love he offered from there. It implies a response to the Son of God who accepted to be the Son of Mary precisely to be able to assume within his divinity what belongs to our humanity. We cannot talk about what belongs to the human being without mentioning sin and death. It is the language of the faith to say it this way.  But we must get to the point. On the Cross, Christ loves us until death, and He accepts being a victim to the power of sin. On the Cross he shows himself as a triumphant victim precisely because by being God, the power of sin can kill him but cannot take away his life (to say it in a paradoxical way). We cannot love the Cross without confessing that sin and death are real, strong and beyond our strength to abolish or control. And further, loving the Cross implies confessing that God had to intervene to overcome the nefarious power of what afflicts us most deeply.

Today’s world doesn’t talk much about sin and tries to avoid the word – apparently to avoid leaving any sign of judgment or responsibility in secular-speak (a word I invented to name the campaign to erase the traits of religious meaning from everyday language). At the moment, though, there is no need to engage in discussions about judgment or responsibility. First things first. We call sin that nefarious power within human beings and within history that always results in the crucifixion of human beings. Be it the last illness and natural death, be it an unjust condemnation, be it betrayal, or Cain’s fratricide, be it the poverty of the innocent, whatever it may be, the most obvious fact is that men suffer the Cross because human reality and history give testimony to this inexorable experience. If modern men and women who have no interest in religion do not want to talk about responsibility or judgment, and because of that they do not talk about sin, it’s okay, it’s a topic for another day. But they should be honest and admit that suffering has a cause, and it is not limited to natural causes such as illnesses or earthquakes. Human beings themselves have been responsible for actions afflicting other human beings. These actions of hate and vengeance, the lies invented to justify the rejection of the unwanted, the savage appetite to maintain control and power, the game that betrays the vulnerable - all this shows that the world has walked a crooked and mistaken historic path since before books were written to record it.

I repeat the question: What does it mean to love Christ’s Cross? We will experience the Cross with or without Christ Jesus. In other words the Cross is the sign of our own most profound wound. By embracing the Cross with Christ, we love the God of love that offers us an exit from the vicious cycle of sin, suffering and death. In Jesus Christ, God accepted being crucified with the rest of us, that is to say, with all of us. They crucified him, and he accepted being crucified. One has to do with the game of the world under the power of sin, the other has to do with our Lord’s freedom, surrendering himself voluntarily. We love the self-gift He gives, the love, which motivated God our Lord to identify in a definitive way with our condition, giving us proof that love triumphs over sin. To believe in the Cross means to believe that in the end the love of God present in us defeats hate, and that life defeats death. On the Cross, God’s justice shows itself as a sign of mercy offered to us. 

In the larger scheme of things, what one does in the security line at airports, taking off the Cross or leaving it on, doesn’t reach astounding heights of importance. But what does touch upon our salvation is our attitude in front of Christ’s Cross. The Cross is the center of a Catholic’s life; to say I am Christian is equivalent to saying I believe in the power of Christ’s Cross. If by God’s grace you and I reach eternal salvation, without a doubt it will be because we have persevered in the faith we have in the Lord’s Cross, and because we have reciprocated in some way the victorious love he has offered us.

+df