HOLY WEΕΚ 2020 - The Cross and the world

HOLY WEΕΚ 2020

Prayer during pandemic illness
(of the new Coronavirus that has fallen upon us)

The Cross and the world

We cannot think of the world without the cross. The cross makes this world   transparent for God.  The cross shows that   the world is God's gift, and as such is a lower, and lesser reality than God himself.  The cross is the sign of God as a person who is above all his gifts.  The cross is the sign of the Son of God become man, the sign which he prints on the world by his solidarity with the world.

Without the cross man would be in danger of considering this world as the ultimate reality.  Without the cross he would no longer see the world as God's gift.  Without   the cross the Son of God incarnate would have simply confirmed the image of the world as it is now as the final reality, and strictly speaking he could have been neither God nor God incarnate. The cross completes the fragmentary meaning of this world which has meaning when it is seen as a gift which has its value, but only a relative and not an absolute value. The cross reveals the destiny of the world as it is drawn towards its transfiguration in God by Christ.  For this reason, at the end of this stage of the world this sign, 'the sign of the Son of Man'. will be revealed in the heavens above all the world, as a light, as a meaning, as a destiny which illumines the whole history of man (Matt.24:30).

Fr. Dumitru Staniloae
“The Victory of the Cross”
Fairacres Publication

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