The Cross

(Found here)

“The wood of the Cross became the vehicle for our redemption, just as the tree from which it was fashioned had occasioned the fall of our first parents. Suffering and death, which had been a consequence of sin, were to become the very means by which sin was vanquished. The Innocent Lamb was slain on the altar of the Cross, and yet from the immolation of the victim new life burst forth: the power of evil was destroyed by the power of self-sacrificing love.

The Cross, then, is something far greater and more mysterious than it first appears. It is indeed an instrument of torture, suffering and defeat, but at the same time it expresses the complete transformation, the definitive reversal of these evils, that is what makes it the most eloquent symbol of hope that the world has ever seen. It speaks to all who suffer – the oppressed, the sick, the poor, the outcast, the victims of violence – and offers them hope that God can transform their suffering into joy, their isolation into communion, their death into life. It offers unlimited hope to our fallen world.”

~Benedict XVI