Holy Cross Day

"Bishop William Wiedrich tells a wonderful story of a conductor who, while directing a large group of percussionists, raised his arms & signaled a huge corps of timpanists to sound their instruments. The din lasted a moment, then he raised his hands again & waved them to silence. Addressing the percussionists, he reminded them of a principle they had obviously overlooked: 'The music,' he said, 'is in the drum, not in the mallet. One does not beat the music into the drum; one coaxes the music out of the drum.' Then, taking a mallet, he struck the drum & gently let the mallet rise off the skin, as if the mallet were pulling sound from the kettle. The resulting sound was musical, full & resonant.

The cross is like the music of the timpani; it is not something one puts on, but rather something that is coaxed out of us. The wearing of the cross is not an accessory to life, but rather the embrace of life itself. Indeed, Christians do not wear the cross as an emblem of exclusitvity or a talisman of spirituality; Christians bear the cross within, in the daily embrace of all that it means to be human. To be a Christian is not to take the cross upon onself, but rather to have the fullness of life coaxed out of oneself. For life was not imposed upon Jesus. Life was not beaten into Jesus; nor is life beaten into us. The life is in him, and he is in us even as the music in in the drum."

Sam Portaro, "Brightest & Best", p. 163-4

Picture - Holy Cross - San Clemente, Rome
(Detail of Apse mosaic, 12th Century)