Welcoming the Holy
Here we invite you to take time for yourself in personal prayer. The following spiritual reflection offers words and images which we hope will evoke for you an experience of God.
By: Sister Joan Sobala
“When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself. ” John 12.32
Opening Prayer
JESUS, Savior, by Your cross You have set us free. Yet how seldom we take time to think of Your cross, the ultimate sacrifice You made so that we might be freed from the entanglements of sin. As I look upon the cross, wherever I find it, let my heart and mind turn to You today and as I make my way through this week. Amen.
Reflection
Only once during the average year do we concentrate our thoughts on the cross, namely Good Friday. “Behold,” we sing. “Behold the wood of the cross on which is hung our salvation. O come let us adore.” And we do. We are all invited to come forward, in solemn procession, to venerate the cross.
The power, meaning and value of the cross is so important in the Church that each time this feast, the Triumph of the Holy Cross, falls on a Sunday, this feast supersedes the Sunday of Ordinary Time prescribed for the day, a substitution very seldom made.
There is no Christianity without the cross. Will we embrace it as Jesus did? Will we understand the big and little sufferings of our lives, willingly embraced, as bearing the cross with Jesus?
Is there a cross in our house? Somewhere we go to pray? Do we ever stop in at our parish church to walk the stations of the cross?
Through this instrument of death, Jesus brought us life eternal.
Closing Prayer
Creator God, as we look upon the cross of Your Beloved Son, help us to take into our hearts and minds all He offers us by His example. Let His generosity in saving us from all that is destructive of life move us to accept the cross in our own lives, “We adore You, O Christ and we bless You, for by Your holy cross, You have redeemed the world.” May this prayer become part of what we offer you in faith each day throughout the year. Amen.
