Pope Francis: Approach mystery of the Cross with prayer and tears
(Vatican Radio) At the Mass for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Pope
Francis said the mystery of the Cross is a great mystery for mankind, a mystery that
can only be approached in prayer and in tears.
In his homily, the Pope said
that it is in the mystery of the Cross that we find the story of mankind and the story
of God, synthesised by the Fathers of the Church in the comparison between the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil, in Paradise, and the tree of the Cross:
“The
one tree has wrought so much evil, the other tree has brought us to salvation, to
health. This is the course of the humanity’s story: a journey to find Jesus Christ
the Redeemer, who gives His life for love. God, in fact, has not sent the Son into
the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. This
tree of the Cross save us, all of us, from the consequences of that other tree, where
self-sufficiency, arrogance, the pride of us wanting to know all things according
to our own mentality, according to our own criteria, and also according to that presumption
of being and becoming the only judges of the world. This is the story of mankind:
from one tree to the other.”
In the Cross there is the “story of God,”
the Pope continued, because we can say that God has a story.” In fact, “He has chosen
to take up our story and to journey with us,” becoming man, assuming the condition
of a slave and making Himself obedient even to death on a Cross:
“God takes
this course for love! There’s no other explanation: love alone does this. Today we
look upon the Cross, the story of mankind and the story of God. We look upon this
Cross, where you can try that honey of aloe, that bitter honey, that bitter sweetness
of the sacrifice of Jesus. But this mystery is so great, and we cannot by ourselves
look well upon this mystery, not so much to understand – yes, to understand – but
to feel deeply the salvation of this mystery. First of all the mystery of the Cross.
It can only be understood, a little bit, by kneeling, in prayer, but also through
tears: they are the tears that bring us close to this mystery.”
“Without
weeping, heartfelt weeping,” Pope Francis emphasized, we can never understand this
mystery. It is “the cry of the penitent, the cry of the brother and the sister who
are looking upon so much human misery” and looking on Jesus, but “kneeling and weeping”
and “never alone, never alone!”
“In order to enter into this mystery, which
is not a labyrinth but resembles one a little bit, we need the Mother, the mother’s
hand. That she, Mary, will make us understand how great and humble this mystery is;
how sweet as honey and how bitter as aloe. That she will be the one who accompanies
us on this journey, which no one can take if not ourselves. Each one of us must take
it! With the mother, weeping and on our knees.”