In Galilee on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, 14 September 2015, Cardinal Vincent gave a homily on the true glory of the Cross.
Speaking of Golgotha, the Cardinal said: 'It is from there that the Cross of Jesus shines forth across all time and all places.'
Using the powerful image of the Blood of Christ flowing into the skull of Adam, which reputedly rests in the Chapel of Adam below the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Cardinal Vincent said: 'The death of Jesus, the Eternal Word of God, strikes at the heart of our history, reaching to our very foundations and overcoming that original fault which forever marks our struggles, leaving us as sinful beings, constantly caught between the good we desire and the evil we do.'
Referring to the Letter to the Hebrews, the Cardinal made the point that the author was making the point 'that of ourselves we cannot fulfil our own potential, we cannot attain to that glory which is in the mind of God as his plan and intention for us. But in Christ that is indeed made possible because, as the text says, "he has tasted death for everyone".'
Alluding to the Holy Land as 'the geography of salvation, a land full of rocks', Cardinal Vincent said, 'on this feast, we are invited to see all the places and situations in our lives in which we are confronted by unyielding rock'.
'The Cross of Christ is brutal,' he added. 'But it is victorious because it casts a horizon that takes us beyond its own brutality and in doing so takes us too beyond every brutality this world produces.'
Cardinal Vincent delivered this homily at morning Mass on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross during the Plenary Assembly of the Bishops' Conference of Europe taking place in the Holy Land that same week.
The full homily can be read here.
