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Message from our Pastor.
What Wondrous Love is This?
Crosses are popular. They are worn around the neck, around the wrist, on ears, tattooed on arms and hang from car mirrors. The cross has a history of fear, death and disgrace. Then God intervened with humankind and sacrificed his only Son. Since that first dark, but Good Friday, the cross became a symbol of glory, victory, and life. Almost everyone – ‘church-goers’ or not, recognize something powerful about the cross, and I feel even more so, a crucifix holding the corpus (body) of Christ. As I was drawn to the Catholic faith it didn’t take me long to realize it’s difficult to sit in front of a crucifix and remain indifferent.
While attending the seminary, I was assigned to a maximum security prison (to work, I mean). On Friday evenings, along with the priest, inmates would sit in a circle and pass a wooden crucifix from one man to the next. Each voiced what was weighing on his heart, all the while holding it in his hands. And I wondered, how many times that wooden crucifix was stained by the sweat of their palms and tears of their face as they poured out their hearts. It’s difficult to gaze upon a crucifix and remain indifferent.
On Friday we will gather to participate in the reading of the Passion of Christ from the Gospel of John, and time to reflect and gaze upon “the wood of the cross”, a practice in the Church beginning in the 2nd century. It remains still, an ardent and loving devotion – a deeply moving experience to those who participate. So Holy is the One, and so sacred the act that took place on the cross – that the tool, the instrument itself becomes a sacred and revered part of our salvation history.
What Wondrous Love is This?
What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this,
That caused the Lord of bliss,
To bear the dreadful curse,
For my soul, for my soul,
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul.
To God and to the Lamb, I will sing, I will sing!
To God and to the Lamb, I will sing, I will sing!
To God and to the Lamb, Who is the great “I AM, ”
While millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing!
While millions join the theme, I will sing.
On Good Friday, beginning at 12:15 p.m.
you are welcome to join us to participate,
or simply to watch and pray in silence.
~Father D. Greenfield
All Saints Catholic Church, Berlin
