Today the Church celebrates the Triumph of the Cross, sometimes called the Exaltation of the Cross.
The Cross, which represents the Passion and Death of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, is called a mystery , and rightly, so it is. How can anyone ever sufficiently recognize or understand the greatness of that symbol?
The crucifix is an object that is in every Catholic Church and in many homes of Catholic Christians. But does anyone really look at it? Or truly see it? Has it just become and object, although a sacred one, for a casual reminder of the price paid for our salvation?
Alphonsus de Liguori, in talking of the Passion of Jesus Christ notes that in Luke's account of the Transfiguration (according to the translation he used), Moses and Elijah met with Jesus on Mount Tabor and spoke about his approaching passion and death: "And they spoke of his excess that he should accomplish in Jerusalem." Luke, 9:31. In another translation, the word "extravagance" is used: the extravagance of his suffering in Jerusalem. That excess or extravagance is part of the mystery.
That God in the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity should become man while still possessing the Divine nature is astonishing in itself. That this God-man, one Person with two natures (one fully human an one truly Divine) should willingly endure the utmost humiliation of the Cross: the condemnation before Pilate, the cruel scourging at the pillar, the brutal crowning with thorns, the unspeakable carrying of his own cross to the place of crucifixion, and finally, the utter desolation as he hung on the cross for three hours in agony, and ultimately, his death (in his human nature) is beyond human comprehension. That is the mystery: the mystery of the greatness of God's love for mankind, His own creation.
St Augustine once said, "There is no more profitable occupation for the soul than to meditate daily on the Passion of Our Lord." What profit can a person derive from meditating on the Cross of Christ? Christ, who lives now both in his human nature after the resurrection, and in his Divine nature, which never underwent change, accepts our meditation as an act of gratitude for his Sacrifice. Every time a person reflects on the extravagance of the Cross, Christ accepts it as a sacrifice of praise. This is what the Church teaches (through one of its Doctors of the Church, St Alphonsus de Liguori) and what should be evident by the great love which prompted the suffering and Passion of our Savior. Only by a realization of the unutterable magnitude of Christ's sacrifice, can one truly appreciate the Triumph of the Cross.
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