Death, Be Not Proud

We awoke early to make our way to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem in order that we could celebrate Mass there first thing in the morning. We were celebrating the Mass of the Triumph of the Cross on the spot of Calvary, where Jesus was put to death, where His blood was shed, and where that precious blood dropped to the ground for the salvation of our souls. Here a symbol of death became a symbol of life.

Do we ever really take time to take a step back and realize just how odd it is that in every Catholic Church, in many Catholic schools, nursing homes, universities, and around many Catholics' necks we display a symbol of torture? Crucifixion was used for public execution. It was a symbol of Roman power and a symbol of shame to all who were put to such an excruciating and humiliating death. Can you imagine wearing a necklace of a guy in an electric chair? How sick and twisted would that seem? Yet, do we not do the same with the crucifix?

The importance of Calvary only makes sense in light of the Resurrection. And so for the first time all of us lined up after Mass to go inside the tomb of Jesus, where He was laid to rest and most importantly where He rose from the dead! We each took our turn to touch and to pray on the stone where Jesus was laid to rest and from which He awoke to new life. And that is the mystery. Death is transformed only into sleeping. And this is why we can defiantly wear and display the crucifix. Because death and torture have no power over us. What was once a symbol of Roman power became, through the Resurrection, a symbol of Roman weakness. For death lost its sting, and torture became a means to glory. They could not keep our God down even by death and so death is no threat for us, for our God will deliver us too. John Donne writes in his poem taunting death, "Death, be not proud...poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me...why swellest thou then?... one short sleep past, we wake eternally. Death shall be no more, for even death, thou shalt die." This is the glory of the Resurrection. This is the hope on which we stand. This is why we can proudly display what once was a symbol of torture, because we know that it has been transformed into the symbol of our eternal life and a symbol of divine, extravagant love that not even death has power to overcome.