Archbishop of Sydney

His Eminence,
Cardinal George Pell
Cardinal Priest of the Title of S. Maria Domenica Mazzarello

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Home > Our Archbishop > Homilies 2003 > Article	Printable Version

Triumph of the Cross

St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney
Num 21:4-9; Phil 2:6-11; Jn 3:13-17

By + George Pell
ARCHBISHOP OF SYDNEY
14 September 2003

Common sense changes slowly over time. It is defined as good practical judgement in everyday affairs or the general feeling of the community. Common sense in Australia has been influenced by our geography and history, including many centuries of Christian teaching. Australians who support a “fair go” for all are an example of this.

But Christian and secular versions of common sense differ on some important points, such as the importance of forgiveness and the potential value of suffering.

Secularists, who share many decent common sense convictions with us, would never celebrate a feast such as the Triumph of the Cross. The death of a good man on a cross (the form of punishment used for slaves and prohibited for criminals who were Roman citizens) caused by evil opponents is a tragedy. Any God who took on the condition of a slave, emptying himself of his divinity and accepting such a disgraceful death was going against the canons of common sense.

By another coincidence this feast occurs during the flower festival celebrating the beauty of God’s creation. How do we reconcile this light and darkness, blessing and curse, Christmas and Easter, health, decay and death and their aftermaths, oblivion, regeneration or resurrection?

The short answer is found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, Son of God and Mary’s son, who lived, suffered, died, and rose again to give us life. The cross gives eternal life.

The cross is not an end in itself. Christians are not masochists, who enjoy suffering. The cross and all forms of Christian penance are means to life and goodness. Christians are extreme optimists because we believe in heaven.

Jesus was not a fatalist, who accepted illness and misfortune as God’s will. He battled against illness and suffering. He cured the sick, dumb, blind, and lame and urged us to help all those in any type of misfortune. And always over 2000 years good Christians have battled against evil and sickness.

Jesus was not self-centred, proud, or arrogant. His aim was service not domination, the genuine humility of a genuine helper. Virtue is beautiful. Vice is deforming, but evil can be fascinating. While there can be no demonic truth or goodness, there is demonic beauty, beguiling us to evil ends.

When we recognize this, it is quite clear that Our Lord understood the beauty of nature as a blessing, a Godly gift. Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like the lilies of the field, which neither toil nor spin. (Mt 6:28-9)

Love and flowers are both gifts from God. Love reflects God’s very essence; flowers are the work of his creative will and their beauty has its origin in God’s perfect beauty.

It is therefore most appropriate for a Cathedral dedicated to worshipping the one true God to celebrate the arrival of spring with this Festival of Flowers lovingly arranged. In doing so we celebrate the gift of life, the wisdom and providence of God, and we express our thanks to our Creator.

Even those who are unbelievers, or simply unsure about God are still touched by the beauty of nature, and indeed many people in countless generations have been led towards God by contemplating these beauties.

The bible tells us that the human race was born in a paradise, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The gardener there was God himself and the garden had in it everything that we needed: little wonder that ever since we were expelled for breaking the rules of conduct, humanity has longed to return to that garden. That longing for paradise is reflected in our delight in the beauty of plants, their flowers and fruit, their comforting shelter, their strength and their usefulness.

Because we no longer live in a paradise garden we have had to learn how to select and sow, fertilize and water, weed, cultivate and prune. We construct gardens for food, gardens to walk in, beautiful patterned gardens to admire. Such gardens and their cultivars provide nourishment for body and mind, and they should awaken in us deeper, spiritual feelings. Little wonder that herb gardens and kitchen gardens and flowers gardens have long been important features of convents and monasteries.

I suspect it would be difficult for someone who is a serious gardener to be a bad person, because they are too much in tune with what is good in nature, producing and nurturing life and beauty.

Gardeners also realise that skill and hard work are necessary to produce regularly beautiful flowers in beautiful gardens. Even in this wonderful area around Sydney, so untypical of most of Australia, we are not in the Garden of Eden. Roses still have thorns. Sweat on the brow is still required.

Nature can be cruel and relentless in droughts, bushfires, earthquakes, volcanoes or typhoons. Nature too needs to be redeemed.

Nature is beautiful as the flowers in the Cathedral this morning demonstrate, but human beauty is of a higher, purer order than any flower, higher than anything in the lower orders of nature. And the highest human beauty, purifying the agent, is found in sacrifice for great and good causes. Only the Christ who suffered, died and then rose was able to open the gates to eternal happiness in paradise. That is what we mean by the Triumph of the Cross.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.