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Tuesday, January 10, 2006




A FURTHER COMMENT ON THE RESURRECTION CRUCIFIX

at Emmaus Catholic Church--the one that has been placed in the sanctuary.

There is a picture of it standing outside on this webpage (Click the "furnishings" link and scroll down.) It gives a closer view.

In the previous blog I linked the gnostic interpretation of the crucifixion. Last night I found a similar interpretation in _Against the Heresies Book 1_ of St. Irenaeus of Lyons:

He thereupon appeared as a man on earth to the nations of these powers and worked wonders. And so he did not suffer, but a certain Simon of Cyrene was compelled to carry the cross for him. Through ignorance and error this Simon was crucified, having been transformed by Christ so that he was believed to be Jesus while Jesus himself assumed the form of Simon and, standing by, ridiculed them. ...

Those, then, who know these things are freed from the Princes who made the world. They are not obliged to acknowledge him who was crucified, but the one who came in the form of man, and was thought to have been crucified, was called Jesus, and was sent by Father in order to destroy through this Economy the works of those who made the world. Therefore, he asserts, if anyone acknowledges him who was crucified, he is still a slave and is under the power of those who made the bodies. He, however, who denies him is freed from them and has knowledge of the Economy of the ingenerate Father.
(Chapter 24, "The Errors of Saturninus and Basilides")


The gnostics believe that Jesus tricked His executioners and avoided the crucifixion.

There are resurrection crosses that appear especially at Easter time. They are symbolic of Christ overcoming the death of the cross through his resurrection from the grave. They are not pictures of Jesus coming down from the cross under his own power. This cross in the Texas church, though, is not showing a victory over the grave, but rather a victory over the cross itself. If Christ came down from the cross and did not die in the crucifixion, he did not rise from the dead, and according to Scripture, we are then still in our sins.

That image of Christ coming off of the cross is problematic, and especially with it in the sanctuary where the Sacrifice of the Mass is being celebrated. The symbolism is terribly wrong.



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