Vigils Reading – Exaltation of the Holy Cross

A reading from

ST JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

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As the doctrine of the Cross, though it be the true interpretation of this

world, is not prominently manifested in it upon its surface, but is concealed; so

again, when received into the faithful heart, there it abides as a living principle,

but deep, and hidden from observation. Religious people, in the words of

Scripture, “live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved them and gave Himself

for them:”but they do not tell this to all; they leave others to find it out as they

may.

Our Lord’s own command to His disciples was, that when they fast, they

should “anoint their head and wash their face.” Thus they are bound not to make

a display, but ever to be content to look outwardly different from what they are

really inwardly. They are to carry a cheerful countenance with them, and to

control and regulate their feelings, that those feelings, by not being expended on

the surface, may retire deep into their hearts and there live.

And thus “Jesus Christ and He crucified” is, as the Apostle tells us,

“hidden wisdom;” — hidden in the world, which seems at first sight to speak a

far other doctrine, — and hidden in the faithful soul, which to persons at a

distance, or to chance beholders, seems to be living but an ordinary life, while

really it is in secret holding communion with Him who was “manifested in the

flesh,” “crucified through weakness,” “justified in the Spirit, seen of Angels, and

received up into glory.”

This being the case, the great and awful doctrine of the Cross of Christ,

which we now commemorate, may fitly be called, in the language of figure, the

heart of religion. The heart may be considered as the seat of life; it is the

principle of motion, heart, and activity; from it the blood goes to and fro to the

extreme parts of the body. It sustains us in our powers and faculties; it enables

the brain to think and when it is touched, we die. And in like manner the sacred

doctrine of Christ’s Atoning Sacrifice is the vital principle on which the

Christian lives, and without which Christianity is not. Without it no other

doctrine is held profitably; to believe in Christ’s Divinity, or in His manhood, or

in the Holy Trinity, or in a judgment to come, or in the resurrection of the dead,

is an untrue belief, not Christian faith unless we receive also the doctrine of

Christ’s sacrifice…

The heart is hidden from view; it is carefully and securely guarded; it is

not like the eye set in the forehead, commanding all, and seen of all: and so in

like manner the sacred doctrine of the Atoning Sacrifice is not one to be talked

of, but to be lived upon; not to be put forth irreverently, but to be adored

secretly; not to be used as a necessary instrument in the conversion of the

ungodly, or for the satisfaction of reasoners of this world, but to be unfolded to

the docile and obedient; to young children, whom the world has not corrupted;

to the sorrowful, who need comfort, to the sincere and earnest, who need a rule

of life; to the innocent, who need warning; and to the established who have

earned the knowledge of it.