Good Friday Adoration of the Cross

Jesus did not invent the cross.

He, like every man [sic],

Found it on his journey.

The newness in his message

was to plant a seed of love

into our bearing of the cross.

The element of love

Turned the way of the cross

into a way that leads to life....

From his cross Jesus

invites us to do as he did:

Plant the seeds of love and hope

In the soil of each of the crosses

We encounter.

                                                            Cardinal Carlo Martini, SJ

Tonight's service included the invitation to hundreds of people to come forward to venerate the cross and claim it, and receive the seed of love and hope planted there for each individual journey, and the journey of the human family with each other.  The keeper told us of how she was mesmerized by the sea of people coming forward, carrying their losses, pains, struggles, reaching up to touch the cross, to reconnect with those seeds of love and hope, to touch the possibility of transformation. Time seemed to fly by, she said.