March Allocutio 2025

To know Christ crucified

Fr. Paul Churchill, Concilium Spiritual Director

To know Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2:2). That is how St. Paul put it just over 20 years after the events of Good Friday. But we too, nearly 2,000 years later, also need to know him no other way. Every time we celebrate Mass, every time we pray before the Blessed Sacrament, every time we pass a Church, let us remember that the Person there is the one who has been crucified and still bears the wounds of that crucifixion in his body. There is no other way of remembering him, of being conscious of him.

We just might think of him occasionally as the eternal Son with the Father, or the Word made flesh in the Virgin’s womb, or the child born in the stable in Bethlehem, or the great preacher and miracle worker in Galilee. But the great reality now at this moment is that he is the One who was crucified, died, was buried and has Risen from the dead, bearing the wounds of his Passion. And whether it is to a doubting Thomas who demands to see the wounds made in his hands or whether it is a more recent Margaret Mary Alocque to whom he shows his wounded heart, it remains the same reality: Christ crucified, risen but still with his wounds. That is why we have the 5 studs in the Pascal Candle.

St Paul says, “We preach a Christ crucified!” (1 Cor 1:23). Every time we come before him to pray, be it is Church or in the privacy of our home, be it in the Mass or any other Sacrament, let us always keep before us that reality: this is the one who still bears the wounds of the Cross. That is the only way to know him and relate to him.

And let us never forget that the reason he is so is because of our sins. He still bears the wounds of our sins. Even in eternity we will worship the Lamb in whose blood we have all been washed (Rev 7:13-14). In fact, in the Book of the Apocalypse or Revelation there are 28 references to the Lamb and many of them refer to him slain or to his blood by which we are washed clean. This is his current reality and how he will be in eternity.

When you come to pray to him, when you ask his help, how do you visualize him? Remember his wounds every time. Remind yourself that it is because of your sins he suffered all this. This must be the starting point of every encounter with him.

When Jesus accepted the wooden frame of the Cross, he accepted something even heavier. He took on the sins of the whole world. As said through Isaiah, “He was wounded for our transgression, he was bruised for our sins” (Is 53:5).

The decision and intention to crucify Jesus had imbedded in it all the sins of the world. Hatred and jealousy on the part of the Sadducees and Pharisees, the betrayal of truth by Pilate, the option by Pilate and the apostles to go to save themselves and opt for personal comfort. And then maybe the silent majority. We can read into that moment also the absolute abandonment of compassion. Prayer and reflection will show more. This is the weight he carries; this is the burden he knows he must bear so that the reign of sin can end.

But then he crashes to the ground. His physical strength has left him. But perhaps his spiritual strength is also under strain. Yet he knows he must get up and keep going to the end. And as he gets up, she is there, the one he addresses as “Woman!” That person in creation he most depends on. He has always depended on her. Now more than ever. Because he sees in her, not just his mother, but the one full of grace and beauty and loveliness and compassion and the purest love. She shows him that the human race is beautiful and worth fighting for. From her he gets strength to go on and complete his mission.

He has this reinforced by Simon who willingly lends his shoulders to the Cross despite being forced to. Veronica shows him a spontaneous kindness and indeed as his ordeal goes on, he finds himself rewarded. Young John is there with his mother, Magdalene and the other women, the good thief defends him and seeks his intercession. And did he, just as he died overhear the Centurion say, “This was a good man, this was a son of God”?

In death he returns to the Father in eternity and carries his endured passion and death up to his Heavenly Father. And it becomes eternalized so that at each Mass we can have direct contact with it. But as his resurrection experiences show he still bears his wounds. That is how we must look at the Lord on the Altar, in the Tabernacle, in our private spaces, every time we turn to him. He is the Lord who bears the wounds of our sins for which he gave himself totally.

In his earthly existence he depended on one person above all. On her Yes depended his entering our world, on her breasts he depended for his first milk, on her gentle hands he depended to take his first steps, on her guidance he kept out of the public eye before she cleared him to go ahead with his ministry at the wedding in Cana, symbol of the wedding feast of the Lamb who was slain for us.

St Paul said, “By my sufferings I make up what is lacking in the suffering of Christ” (Col 1:24). Our Lady lived that. She asks us to do the same. And I just wonder this: will Our Lord ever be cleared of those wounds of the Cross? Perhaps, but even then only when the last of the redeemed arrives in Heaven. But maybe it will be our joy to behold him forever bearing those wounds which show us the depth of his love and the wonder of his suffering. By his wounds we are healed.

“We adore you O Christ and we bless you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”