The cross for today is another from a holiday. Last August we were on holiday in Italy for a week and visited the island of Murano, near Venice, where we saw something of the techniques involved in making the famous Murano glass - and I bought this cross at the factory shop. It was interesting to see the craftsmanship and the variety of glass projects produced.
This cross is rather splendid, quite ornate, and a long way from the original on which it is modelled. It is a thing of beauty and, as such, very different from a chunk of blood-stained rough wood. Yet I want to bring the two together, recognising that the original cross had its own beauty, certainly a strange beauty, but a beauty demonstrated in all it represents. On the face of it, it was a horrible instrument of torture - but its beauty is to be seen in the depths of its demonstration of God's love.
There's a verse in a medieval Latin hymn, written by Venantius Fortunatus and translated by Alan Gaunt.
It's the fourth verse:
This tree, ablaze with royal light
and with the blood-red robe it wears,
is hallowed and embellished by
the weight of holiness it bears,
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