Journeying with the Founder Day #165

We become united and in communion through Christ’s Cross …so that on the Cross of Jesus all people in Christ can reach unity with the Father. The Cross is a source of union; it demolishes the walls of division; it creates communion…In the Pauline vision Christ, dying on the Cross, defeats death, defeats Satan, and gives life to us. Thus He unites us to Himself through grace. Here the Johannine concept is inserted: dying on the Cross, Christ gives us grace; He opens the way to life through His pierced side from which flow water and blood, that is, the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist—the sacraments of life.

Therefore Christ dead on the Cross is the source of life and of union not only because He defeated death and saved us from condemnation, but because, climbing on the Cross, He gives us the sacraments which are the force through which we enter into life… This is the marvelous vision that shows us the Cross as salvation, certainly, but also as the source of communion with the Father. Christ not only conveys to us His divine reality, His Hypostatic union, but He unites us to the Father through His death on the Cross. Then we understand those mysterious words—“I thirst” or “Sitio”—not only in connection with the mystery of the Cross but also as a source of union, of communion. Christ thirsts for our souls; Christ wants us to go to Him. (Communio)

Journeying with the Founder Day #165