On This Second Friday of Lent...

artist Leon Bonnat  (1833-1922)

...I'm meditating on the cross of Christ.

It may be the greatest paradox of all time: the greatest DEFEAT, the defeat of the cross, won the greatest VICTORY, the victory of salvation. God, the Word made flesh, by allowing mankind to kill Him, opened the gates of heaven for us. Man kills God; God saves man.

I'm trying to wrap my poor mind around that fact.

Does any one of us, in view of the cross, have a right to be angry or bitter against a brother or sister who's wronged us? No wonder Jesus calls us to forgive from the heart!

Chesterton has one of his characters in The Ball and the Cross say, "The cross cannot be defeated...for it is Defeat."

If you want to be a winner, embrace the cross -- the Cross with a capital C and the multiple crosses in your life with small c's. Every person's life is filled with crosses, crucifixion by thumbtack as my sister says. Some of them are self-inflicted because of our own sinfulness. Will we flee from our crosses or bow to the will of God, accept them, and offer them with Christ to "make up what's lacking" in His sufferings as St. Paul says in Colossians 1:24

May God make this for you and me a Lent that brings us into a more intimate union with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

"O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto thine."