When I was a child in National School (grammar) I could rattle off the Ember Days. A child today might think they were days for burning off withered weeds and branches. In a way they were. Days of fasting for each of the four seasons on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays to rid ourselves of the withered stuff. The Autumn Ember Days were after the 14th of September.
Thirty
years later, I began to appreciate the 14th of September because it is the
Feast of the Holy Cross. It is not centered on the cross as the bloody instrument
of execution in the Roman Empire (it was that) as in Mel Gibson 's movie,
but this focus is on the cross as the ultimate instrument of transformation
and salvation. The Glorious Cross.
At Sacred Heart over the past twenty-five years, we have celebrated this feast, rejoicing in the depth of it and seeking the saving nurture of it. We are all very aware of evil. We know from sad experience, that evil confronted by evil magnifies evil. But goodness confronting evil absorbs it and wipes it away. The Crucified Christ is the ultimate absorber of evil on the cross and thereby saves us. Thus the cross is glorious.
This feast is connected to the finding of the true cross but that is far from it's most important aspect. No. This feast is anchored near the Autumn equinox and is celebrated as the gloriously bright cross to be held up against the oncoming and ever increasing darkness. Seasonally and cosmically, the days shorten and the darkness lengthens onward into December, when it would seem that the darkness is winning.
Of course, we are dealing with a more profound and penetrating darkness. Not only do the bright eyes of light freeze shut in death but the closing clay drives out the very last touch of light from the grave. Could death be the terror of eternal darkness! But, we in faith proclaim, NO. We see in the cross the glorious key that opens the dark door to eternal light. The source, dynamic and divine, of ultimate transformation.
Our lives are very involved in the repair and restoration of faces, and houses and relationships against all the wear and tear of the weather of time. But above all and beneath all, we hunger for the restoration and salvation of our inner selves.
The Holy Cross is the hope of all hope for us against the darkness of all
the evil that ever was or ever will be. Thanks be to God!
