1 Corinthians 1:18 Meaning For the Word of the Cross Is

The same message splits the room, and which side a person lands on has less to do with cleverness than with whether the heart has been opened. An executed man as the rescue of the world will always sound absurd to anyone measuring by worldly strength.

Catholic life keeps the cross in front of the eyes on purpose, on walls and around necks and at the center of the altar, because the offense is the point. God's power arrives in what looks like defeat. Anyone who wants a faith that never embarrasses them in front of sensible people is asking for a different faith than this one.

The cross is the body itself, the upright and crossbar of the human frame on which the spirit hangs, and the preaching of it is the teaching that the divine descends into flesh and is fastened there. To those who read only the surface, who take the flesh for the whole of themselves, this looks like foolishness, because they see nothing but a torture and cannot feel the energy at work. To those awakened, the same cross is the very current of the divine, the neutral force running through the nervous system that raises a person when turned upward.

What the outer eye sees as defeat on wood is the inner power of the body, the electricity of life used for lifting rather than loss.

Cross: your own body, the frame on which the descending spirit is fixed. Power of God: the neutral electrical force in the body, used for good or harm depending on its direction.