“Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (Jn 13:34)
The Cross of Christ fully reveals the love of God
How is God-Love revealed to us? We have now reached second stage of our journey. Even though signs of divine love are already clearly present in creation, full revelation of intimate mystery of God came to us through Incarnation when God himself became man. In Christ, true God and true Man, we have come to know love in all its magnitude. In fact, as I wrote in Encyclical Deus caritas est, “real novelty of New Testament lies not so much in new ideas as in figure of Christ himself, who gives flesh and blood to those concepts - an unprecedented realism” (n. 12). Manifestation of divine love is total and perfect in the Cross where, we are told by St Paul, “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Rm 5:8). Therefore, each one of us can truly say: “Christ loved me and gave himself up for me” (cf Eph 5:2). Redeemed by his blood, no human life is useless or of little value, because each of us is loved personally by Him with passionate and faithful love, a love without limits. The Cross, for the world a folly, for many believers a scandal, is in fact “wisdom of God” for those who allow themselves to be touched right to innermost depths of their being, “for God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (1 Cor 1:25). Crucifix, which after Resurrection would carry forever marks of his passion, exposes “distortions” and lies about God that underlie violence, vengeance and exclusion. Christ is Lamb of God who takes upon himself sins of the world and eradicates hatred from the heart of humankind. This is true “revolution” that He brings about: love.
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