471st Meditation
How incomparably does the love of God shine forth on the cross:
The love of the Father, who sent His Son to redeem us; the love of the Son for His Father and for us men; the love of the Holy Spirit, who reveals this event of love more deeply to us and makes it present in us.
“But as for me, it is out of the question that I should boast at all, except of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”, exclaims St Paul (Gal 6:14).
At the foot of the Cross we remain to receive the love of God and to let salvation sink ever deeper into us.
In the Message to Mother Eugenia the Father tells us:
“The Cross is My way of coming down among My children, since it is through it that I caused My Son to redeem you. And for you, the Cross is the way to ascend to My Son, and from My Son to Me. Without it you could never come to Me, because man, by sinning, brought on himself the punishment of separation from God”.
In contemplating the Cross, we become aware of God’s love. It testifies how loved we are by Him, and how willing He is to do everything so that we may live with Him as redeemed children. The Cross is our way to ascend to God, because, thanks to the forgiveness of sins that Christ offers us on the Cross, we can look up again and, as a result, the wall of painful separation from our Father is broken down: sadness is transformed into joy, fear into trust, distance into closeness, despair into hope, pride into gratitude and humility, rebellion into obedience, emptiness into fullness….
By your Cross, O Lord, you have conquered death!