We repeat St. Paul's statement of faith at every Mass when, in the memorial acclamation, we sing: "We proclaim your death, O Lord …" Indeed, the Mass is itself a recreation of the paschal mystery, of which the crucifixion remains the most difficult aspect to comprehend. We moderns get frustrated when we cannot solve a problem, when progress fails to deliver on its promises, when the cultural and social sky darkens and sin seems to have the upper hand.
How, then, to wrap our heads and our hearts around the image of a crucified God? Is the crucifixion still a stumbling block for us, some mythic foolishness of an earlier age, a thing to be turned into a nonthreatening metaphor?
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