Pointing through the window of the hut, she said, \u201cThis tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness.\u201d Through the window, she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms. \u201cI often talk to this tree,\u201d she said to me\u2026I asked her if the tree replied. \u201cYes.\u201d What did it say to her? She answered, \u201cIt said to me. \u2018I am here. I am here. I am life. Eternal life.\u2019 \u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In that astonishing moment, Frankl touched on something profound. At the bleakest of moments, in even the darkest of places, we look for life. We want a promise of something better. We want to know that life goes on.<\/div>\n
We crave hope.<\/p>\n
Hope, however fleeting, was there in Auschwitz that morning. And, whether we realize it or not, hope is what has brought us together this afternoon.<\/p>\n
In one sense, of course, we are remembering an event that seems hopeless \u2014 the agony and death of Jesus Christ. Today, in this liturgy, we re-read the story of His passion. We experience a deep and mournful absence \u2013 no consecration, no bells, no final blessing. The altar will be stripped.<\/p>\n
For some people, it\u2019s still customary to turn off the radio, shut off the TV, draw the curtains \u2026 and pray. Some may light candles. Others may follow the Way of the Cross, or pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the rosary.<\/p>\n
The simple fact is: this can\u2019t be a day like any other. Scripture tells us that on the day Christ died, the world \u2013 literally \u2013 cracked open. The earth quaked. To this day, we cannot help but remember what was done for us. As the old spiritual tells us, it causes us to tremble.<\/p>\n
But in the midst of all this, we do something remarkable.<\/p>\n
We venerate the cross with a kiss.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure some outside our faith find it strange that we pay tribute to an instrument of death. But they don\u2019t see the cross the way we do. Maybe they should.<\/p>\n
Maybe they should try to see that the cross was not an end, but a means to an end \u2013 the method God chose to remake the world. Maybe they should strive to see in the cross the beginning of our salvation. This is the wood of the cross, on which hung the savior of the world.<\/p>\n
When the priest prays the Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation, which we hear so often during Lent, he invokes the cross powerfully, and poignantly. As the prayer puts it, Jesus \u201cstretched out his arms between heaven and earth in the everlasting sign of Your covenant.\u201d<\/p>\n
We are reminded today that it is a covenant that was sealed with nails, and splinters, and blood.<\/p>\n
In the reading today from Isaiah, the prophet tells us about the suffering servant \u2013 foreshadowing Christ. Isaiah tells us: \u201cHe grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth\u2026it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Christ\u2019s cross, the wood we venerate and touch, we see part of the shoot from the parched earth. Nailed to this cross, He became one with it \u2013 and we are able to see this wood for what it truly is: a tree, like the one that prisoner saw, that holds out hope.<\/p>\n
From within the four walls of our brokenness, behind the barbed wires of sin, we look out and look up \u2014 and we see this \u201ctree\u201d that symbolizes our salvation. This is how we know we are saved. This is how we know how much God loves us.<\/p>\n
This afternoon, the cross speaks to us. It speaks of the One who suffered and died upon it.<\/p>\n
It speaks to us in consolation. And \u2013 yes \u2014 in hope.<\/p>\n
And quietly, but persistently, it offers us the promise of something better, beyond the prison wall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am here. I am here. I am life. I am Eternal life.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 My homily from 2008. This is also included in the collection of essays, \u201cAll Shall Be Well,\u201d\u00a0published by Orbis Books. \u00a0 + Sixty years ago, the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote a best-selling book about his experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz. \u201cMan\u2019s Search for Meaning,\u201d is considered to be a classic about the worst […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":96432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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