Many non-Catholic Christians disdain the crucifix, because they believe it distracts from our Lord’s victory over sin and death. They prefer the bare cross, which they think better reflects the triumph of his subsequent Resurrection, whereas a crucifix focuses on Jesus’ death or even defeat, as if he still needs to suffers for us. Not surprisingly, then, the sacrifice of the Mass is often caricatured as the blasphemous re-crucifixion of Jesus.
St. Paul has a better both/and idea. He knows that the Resurrection is an indispensable aspect of Christ’s one paschal sacrifice (1 Cor. 15:12-18). Yet he also knows that Christ’s crucifixion depicts how much Jesus loves us in atoning for our sins (John 15:13; see Heb. 9:11-14), and that the Lord’s embracing his own cross—the cross—helps us better to understand the call to carry our own (Matt. 16:24-26).
Indeed, Paul understands that “Christ crucified” graphically symbolizes that Jesus has vanquished sin, death, and the devil and thus necessarily implies his resurrection. It also illustrates that we need a savior and thereby directs our need to repent and become his disciples:
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. . . .
For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor. 1:22-25, 2:2).
Jesus concurs: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” which he proclaims at the beginning of his public ministry (Matt. 3:17), and thereafter along with apostles, illustrating that baptism is fundamental in becoming his disciple and having our sins forgiven (Matt. 28:18-19; Acts 2:37-39).
The Crucifix: A Tangible Reminder (Matt. 28:20)
These truths all help explain why a crucifix—and not simply a bare cross—is the most universally recognized symbol of Catholicism and Christianity in general. As a cradle Catholic—and praised be our Lord Jesus Christ for the efficacy of infant baptism!—I “got it” at a very young age regarding these sacred images in my home and parish church (St. Mary of Redford in Detroit). Seeing our Lord’s corpus on a cross greatly helped me encounter our divine Savior as a child (Matt. 18:1-4; 19:13-15), just as Paul knew it would.
So when I continued to see crucifixes in my classrooms at St. Mary of Redford Grade School in Detroit and Fr. Gabriel Richard High School in Ann Arbor, I knew I was at home. They never confused or repulsed me, let alone cause me to get angry at another religious group for our Lord’s death. I understood that I contributed to putting him on the cross—that we all did through our personal sins. The sacrament of confession made me intimately aware of these realities—and is designed to do so—and so I was and am grateful that Jesus came to redeem us (John 3:16-17; 12:31-33).
Girding our Loins for Our Own Good Fridays
Because of his victory over sin and death, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit, further empowering us to live as credible witnesses for his kingdom (Acts 1:8; 2:1-47; see CCC 156). We need to understand what has Lord has done so that we can embrace his call to holiness and share the good news with others. The sacrament of confirmation calls us—and equips us—to participate personally in the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20):
It gives us a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be ashamed of the Cross:
Recall then that you have received the spiritual seal, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of right judgment and courage, the spirit of knowledge and reverence, the spirit of holy fear in God’s presence. Guard what you have received. God the Father has marked you with his sign; Christ the Lord has confirmed you and has placed his pledge, the Spirit, in your hearts (CCC 1303).
Trials will come for us, as they did for Jesus, as the first reading for Mass on March 20 captures well:
For if the just one be the son of God, he will defend him
and deliver him from the hand of his foes.With revilement and torture let us put him to the test
that we may have proof of his gentleness
and try his patience (Wis. 2:17-18).
Jesus lives out these words in establishing the New Covenant, enduring mockery from the very people he came to save, as we hear in the Passion narrative on Palm Sunday:
Those passing by reviled him, shaking their heads and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, if you are the Son of God, [and] come down from the cross!” Likewise the chief priests with the scribes and elders mocked him and said, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. So he is the king of Israel! Let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now if he wants him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” The revolutionaries who were crucified with him also kept abusing him in the same way (Matt. 27:39-44).
Jesus redeems and offers them salvation (Luke 23:34, 1 Tim. 2:4). We cannot act differently, remembering that our mission is to everyone, because everyone is made in God’s image and likeness (Gen. 1:26-27), and thus one for whom our Lord died and offers salvation (2 Pet. 3:9), which is a reminder of our own need for God’s mercy. To help us love those who hate and persecute us (Matt. 5:43-48), we should remember that our incontrovertible enemies are not “flesh and blood”—i.e., mere human beings—but that we are contending “against the principalities, against the powers,” the devil and all of his demonic minions (Eph. 6:12).
Paul exhorts us to fully arm ourselves (Eph. 6:10-18) and lets us know that our armor includes the sacraments—those weapons of our warfare” that “are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:3-4).
This brings us back to the crucifix and Christ’s one paschal sacrifice that it symbolizes. The sacrament of the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the whole Christian life,” because it enables us to offer anew Christ’s one propitiatory sacrifice (CCC 1366-1367), and also because it provides us to consume our New Covenant Passover Lamb of God through liturgical remembrance in a bloodless, sacramental manner at every Mass, according to the order of Melchizedek—which Jesus assures us will lead us unto eternal life if we receive him reverently (John 6:53-58, Matt. 28:20; see 1 Cor. 10:14-22, 11:23-32).
Our Lord has traveled this road before us. Let us persevere, with his support, because he is trustworthy (John 8:31-32, 14:6; Rom. 8:28).