The Living Reality of the Cross

I did not intend to take a break from blogging during Lent, but that is what ended up happening.  After Easter, I will be spending more time at Sacred Heart Monastery in Yankton, where I am being trained to become a spiritual director.  After that, hopefully I will be able to resume blogging on at least a semi-regular basis.

In the meantime, on this Good Friday, it occurs to me how the cross was not a one-time event, buried deep within human history. When 21 Coptic Christians were beheaded this year, the cross was a living reality.  When 147 people were massacred at a college in Kenya this week, the cross was a living reality.  When millions were being exterminated in the 20th century in Germany, Eastern Europe, and Russia, the cross was a living reality.

Perhaps the most profound statement about the living reality of the cross was not from a Christian theologian, but from a Jewish boy who survived the Nazi holocaust.  In his book, Night, Elie Wiesel recounted the following occurrence from his childhood experience in a concentration camp:   

Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
“For God’s sake, where is God?”
And from within me, I heard a voice answer:
“Where is He?  This is where – hanging here from this gallows…”