OBEDIENS USQUE AD MORTEM

Meditation on Good Friday
in Passione et Morte Domini

Christus factus est pro nobis
obediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis:
propter quod et Deus exaltavit illum,
et dedit illi nomen, quod est super omne nomen;
ut in nomine Jesu omne genu flectatur
cœlestium, terrestrium et infernorum,
et omnis lingua confiteatur,
quia Dominus Jesus Christus
in gloria est Dei Patris.

Phil 2: 8-11

Ecce lignum Crucis, in quo salus mundi pependit. An ancient melody, in three ascending tones, accompanies the unveiling of the Holy Cross during the rites of Good Friday. It is a cry, a warning, an invitation to conversion and penance: Behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the salvation of the world. But the world does not want salvation from Christ. It does not want the Cross. It does not want to recognize itself as a sinner, in its mad pride of being able to do without God and His Holy Law. For the world there is no sin, except in doing good; there is no vice, except in practicing virtue; there is no paradise, except on earth and for sale to those who can afford it; there is no hell, except for the rigid and backward. In this upside-down world, where the infernal Masonic tyranny reigns supreme, sovereignty does not belong to God or to His temporal and spiritual vicars, because the hated symbol of Redemption, the Cross on which Jesus Christ, King and High Priest, has recapitulated all things in Himself, stands out on the crowns of Kings and Popes.

The splendid antiphon that we sing during the Triduum at the end of the Canonical Hours reminds us with Saint Paul that this Redemption was accomplished in obedience: in obedience unto death, death on the Cross. But it also admonishes us that the obedience of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity to the Eternal Father merits the Son to be exalted, so that at His Name every knee should bend, in heaven, on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:10-11).

We preach Christ crucified, a scandal to the Jews, foolishness to the pagans (1 Cor 1:23). Because it is in self-humiliation and in obedience to the Divine Will that we obtain the crown of victory. And there is no Resurrection without the Passion, no reward without trial, no prize without competition. Let us not forget that the Cross is the destiny of each of us and of the Church as a whole. She, as the Mystical Body, must follow Her Master in the passio Ecclesiæ. We, as living members of the Church, must do the same in daily self-denial and in the sequela Christi.

Alter alterius onera portate (Gal 6:2), Saint Paul exhorts us: carry each other’s burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ. And it is precisely Our Lord who gives us the example: in having carried the Cross that each of us would have deserved a thousand times; and in carrying our cross with us, when we would like to be the ones to choose it. If we ever deluded ourselves into thinking we could decide with which cross we should have to merit Heaven, we would soon realize that we are not capable, with our miserable strength, of facing even the most insignificant annoyance, and certainly not the trials that could await us in these troubled times. On the contrary, the cross that the Lord has chosen for us, however burdensome and difficult to carry, will always see the Divine Cyrenean at our side to help us with His Grace.

May the hour of darkness that is approaching spur us to consider the tribulations and trials that we will have to face as a crucible, from which the gold of our sanctity will emerge purified and in which the stains of our misery will be consumed. Let us therefore embrace this Holy Cross, so that it may be our sole point of reference, while the world sinks under the rubble of its deceptions. Stat Crux, dum volvitur orbis. And so may it be."

Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
April 18, 2025
https://exsurgedomine.it/250418-parasceve-eng/

Ecce lignum Crucis

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SURREXIT VERE
Homily of H.E. Msgr. Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop,
for the solemn Pontifical Mass on Resurrection Sunday

"« […] When the Holy Liturgy has us sing Surrexit Dominus vere, we proclaim the Resurrection of Christ not as an object of Faith, but as a historical reality that gives body and substance to Divine Revelation. He is risen indeed, as He said. He is risen despite the soldiers placed to guard the Sepulcher. He is risen and has appeared to His Mother, to Mary Magdalene, to the Apostles. He left the Shroud as irrefutable scientific proof of His divine power.

Surrexit Dominus vere. Because everything that concerns God is true, just, good, beautiful and free; while what comes from Satan is false, unjust, bad, ugly and an object of commerce. God gives us His Son to restore to us the destiny of Blessed Eternity that He had freely granted us at the beginning. Satan uses fraud to sell us the deception of an ephemeral present of fleeting pleasures, at the price of our soul that we condemn to damnation. By the Cross this mercantile relationship is overturned, and the rational folly of Divine Charity forcefully reasserts itself, because where sin has abounded, grace has abounded all the more (Rom 5:20). […] »"

Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
April 20, 2025

https://exsurgedomine.it/250420-pascha-eng/