KISS THE SANTA CRUZ

KISS THE SANTA CRUZ    .........

To kiss the Holy Cross, we can be quite sure: Jesus is not simply a master of how to live well this life

Throughout the year, there is one day that is not celebrated Mass: the Good Friday. Instead of the Mass we have a celebration called Functions Friday of the Passion, which comes from a very ancient tradition of the Church that had already occurred in the early centuries, especially after the inauguration of the Holy Sepulcher and the reunion of the Holy Cross by St. Helena (year 335 AD).

This celebration is divided into three parts: the first is the reading of Sacred Scripture and the universal prayer for all people of all time; the second is the worship of the Holy Cross and the third is the Eucharistic Communion, together form the memorial of the Passion and Death of Our Lord. Memorial is not just remember or to remember the facts, it's really celebrate now seeking to do this, now, all that God has done in other times. We dive in time for us to meet with the grace of God at the time operated salvation and, as we return this dive, we bring in us.

Pilgrims early Christians to Jerusalem describe us, through his diaries that, at some stage of this celebration, the relic of the Holy Cross was exposed for adoration before the Holy Sepulchre. Christians, one by one, passed before her bowing and kissing her. This moment is called Adoration to Santa Cruz, which means to worship Jesus was nailed to the cross through the concrete touch that made that tree where Jesus was extended and was bathed with his blood.

In our world today, talk of Worship to the Holy Cross can generate meaning of confusion, but what we do is venerate the Cross and, while we worship, we have our hearts and minds exceeding that tree exceeds the crufixo exceeds even where we are to meet our Lord nailed on that cross, giving his life to save us. When kissed the cross, not the kiss itself, the kiss as if kissing the face of Jesus himself, is the gratitude for all that Our Lord has done through the cross. The same gesture the priest performs the beginning of each Mass to kiss the altar. It's a kiss that does not stop there, is kissing the face of Jesus. So, do not love the object. The object is a symbol, to revere it plunged into its deepest meaning, the fact that it was through the Cross we are saved.

We Christians we are aware that Jesus is not only a story character or someone enclosed in the past accessible through history only. "Jesus is alive!" Was the screaming Peter on the morning of Pentecost and that was the first Church's proclamation. Jesus is alive and well in our country, death did not arrested. The joy of knowing that, beyond the painful and heavy cross placed on the shoulders of Jesus, dragged by him in Jerusalem, where he was crucified, that becomes the symbol of his presence and love of God, there is life, there is Resurrection . Our life can be confused with the cross of Jesus many times, but before her we are sure that we are not alone, that Jesus walks with us in our personal and Stations of the Cross, in addition to pain, there is salvation.

To kiss the Holy Cross, we can be pretty sure Jesus is not simply a master as well live this life, as many propose, but the living God at work in our midst.