It might seem like a ridiculous question, almost as ridiculous as  the ever popular ‘Are you Catholic or Christian?‘ question, which many of the Protestant groups like to toss  around every so often, almost as if they are trying to justify how they belong to a Christian community that Protested the Church that Christ established. Unfortunately, there are many Protestant communities out there that refer to themselves as ‘Christian’ but they don’t like the Crucifix… or more importantly they don’t like Catholics because they think that Catholics ‘like Christ’s dead body’ and thus keep It hanging from the Cross. They find the Crucifix annoying, since ‘we all know’ that Jesus resurrected, and that honoring Him ‘dead on the cross‘ is just plain stupid.

Unfortunately so many of these same ‘Christians’ don’t know the Faith. They don’t understand that it is only the Catholic Church that can trace it’s roots all the way back to Jesus… and then to Peter, whom Christ appointed as His successor…

“And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” – Matthew 16:18

…The Apostolic line that continues all the way to our present day Pope. No other Christian ‘group’ can do that... all of them are just some sort of breaking away from the Truth…

Did you know, that everyone who considered himself a Christian in the early days was in fact a ‘Catholic’? They were one and the same….Christian equals Catholic, and it remained that way for over fifteen hundred years. Sure, there were periods when heresies against the Faith popped up and people had misunderstandings about what to believe, but for the most part, everyone who considered himself a Christian…was Catholic, that is until King Henry wanted to divorce his wife in 1509. Since he could not get the approval of the pope, he broke away…and became the head of his own church.

Then in 1517 Martin Luther, who was catholic, became concerned with some of the actions being taken by several corrupt priests and so he nailed his now famous ‘Thesis’ to the Church door, pointing out problems with some of these members. Most people never mention the fact, that the Catholic Church agreed with him on many of these same problems and worked them out without throwing the fit that Luther threw. But this action of Luther, caused  an even further splintering or a breaking away from the True Church… Thus breaking the line of Apostolic succession…and creating ‘church communities’ that fail to encompass the True faith that Jesus Christ came to share. An interesting thing to note, is that when Martin Luther was on his death bed, he repented of his actions. He said that what started out as him trying to fix the actions of one bad church leader, only resulted in creating many more bad church leaders…. He realized that no good would come of this splintering… he realized too late that his own ego had stood in the way of the Truth.

As a result of this falling away, there are several tenants of the True faith that were lost among those who protested Jesus’ Church. Many of the Truths that had been handed on by Christ Himself were dismissed and abandoned all together… such as the truth about the Blessed Mother and her virginity. But the main Truth that they fail to believe is that the Eucharist is in fact the actual Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ… instituted at the last Supper…

The list of things that protestants have rejected through the years goes on and on… furthering the separation of these groups from the Body of Christ... which is His Holy Catholic Church. And unfortunately there are now so many wolves in sheep’s clothing out there who are pretending to be preachers of the Lord’s Words, when in fact they spend all of their time bashing Christ’s True Church instead of actually bringing others to Him. This deserves our prayers because when you think about it… it is really quite sad.

This leads me to the title of this post… the Cross or the Crucifix… Many protestants dislike the idea of the Crucifix. They have a twisted view of Catholics over this. They profess that Jesus Christ has been resurrected and that we no longer need to have His ‘dead’ body nailed to the Cross for all eternity…they seem to think…or perhaps they have been told… that Catholics don’t accept Christ’s Resurrection…and that Catholics worship a dead Lord…. when in fact, nothing could be further from the truth… for Catholics… at least for this Catholic… witnessing Christ’s dead body on the Cross helps me to focus my love on Christ’s Living Body which is the Eucharist…

It is precisely for this reason that throughout the years the Crucifix has remained a center point for worship and prayer…it helps the human mind to understand…to somehow comprehend the enormous sacrifice that was made by Christ in His suffering and death on the Cross. It helps us to love the Lord… We must realize that it was not the bare cross that saved us… but it was the death of Christ on the Cross that brought man his salvation. With Christ’s Crucifixion, our sins have lost their power over us. Without this sacrificial death, we would still be un-forgiven, un-redeemed, unsaved… we would be lost. To have the Crucifix instead of the plain Cross, is by far the better way to instill this Truth in the hearts of all men. By using the Crucifix as a sacramental… a point on which to meditate, we can ‘witness’ the pain and the immense suffering our sin caused Jesus…

For those who call themselves ‘Bible’ Christians, this link between Jesus’ death on the Cross and His Resurrection from the tomb can be found in Scripture, Catholics just didn’t make it up.…And as faithful Christians we must maintain this link. We must not hide the brutal force our sin has against Our Dear Lord… We must not deny ourselves the Truth that it was our sin that Crucified our Dear Lord. Even to this day, it is a reminder for us to not allow ourselves to become seduced by the lies of the evil one… Think about it…the devil would like us all to forget that Jesus died for us…in fact, it was the devil himself who didn’t want Christ to get nailed to the Cross in the first place… there would be no redemption without it! It is that powerful... that important… and it helps us to remember the fullness of Christ’s message.  The Crucifix helps convey to the faithful, the intensely personal nature of Christ’s death and redemption. The Crucifix has the power to open even the most hardened of hearts, revealing to the soul, the depth to which Our Lord loved each one of us. It is a message that just can’t be conveyed with bare wood. To remember only one aspect of Christ’s redemption would be to believe in a false gospel that cannot save us. For Christians who preach the Resurrection…you need to remember this;  if we embrace the Resurrection we must also embrace the Holy Cross of His Crucifixion.

‘He who displays the cross, which was the instrument used by the Romans as a method of a most painful execution, in which the condemned is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross, left to hang until death, such a person who worships the plain cross…worships a wooden idol. But he who displays the Crucifix, with the Body of Our Dear Lord, he worships the Redeemer…That Who is present on the Cross…It is He who suffered an enormous amount of pain and suffering as payment for our sins.’ (Paraphrased from a quote by Cecil Dewars.)