St. Anselm’s Prayer to the Holy Cross

My sister-in-law, a devout Arian (JW), asked me once if I’d hang a pistol that had shot a close friend up on my wall or even a picture of such? Her point was to mock the way Christians revere the holy cross and picture it so frequently in their homes and churches. On this Holy Cross Day, good to remember, then, in the wise words of St. Anselm of Canterbury why we adore the Cross:

Holy Cross, which calls to mind the cross whereon our Lord Jesus Christ died, to bring us back from that eternal death to which our misery was leading us, to the eternal life we lost by sinning. I adore, I venerate, and I glory in that cross which you represent to us, and by that cross I adore our merciful Lord and what he has in mercy done for us…. We do not acknowledge you because of the cruelty that godless and foolish men prepared you to effect upon the most gentle Lord, but because of the wisdom and goodness of him who of his own free will took you up. For they could not have done anything unless his wisdom had permitted it, and he could not suffer except that in his mercy he willed it. They chose you that they might carry out their evil deeds; he chose you that he might fulfil the work of his goodness. They that by you they might hand over the righteous to death; he that through you he might save sinners from death. They that they might kill life; he that he might destroy death. They that they might condemn the Saviour; he that he might save the condemned. They that they might bring death to the living; he to bring life to the dead. They acted foolishly and cruelly; he wisely and mercifully. Therefore, O Cross to be wondered at, we do not value you because of the intention of their cruel folly, but according to the working of mercy and wisdom. (The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm with the Proslogion, pp. 102, 103)