5 Things You Didn't Know About The Crucifix | The Catholic Talk Show

hey everybody welcome back to another episode of the catholic talk show today we're going to be talking about five things you may have not known about the cross that's right most catholics have a crucifix in their house and see one every day but there's some interesting facts that most catholics don't know that we're going to share with you today and why not begin with everything we are all so familiar with the sign of the cross in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen [Applause] [Music] good to be back with you guys for another episode i'm really excited about this topic we got some really great things to discuss here guys yeah it's the mystery of the cross and and how the church encourages us to adore the cross you know why would we ever be moved to adoration of the cross clearly the cross has something to express in the christian faith clearly it has something to express deep down in the in the guttural response to human suffering so the cross is that crosshair to look deeply into this mystery and i look forward to talking more deeply about it yeah so today we're going to go over five really cool things we're going to talk about what type of wood the cross is made out of how much the cross weighed how many relics of the true cross are still in existence some particularities about why jesus's head tilts a certain way and what the sign on the cross means and so much more now but before we get into those five things father rich why don't you tell everyone how they can subscribe to us and learn more about what we're doing well if you're on youtube right now don't miss the opportunity to click the subscribe button and click the little bell next to the subscribe button every time we produce a new video each and every week you won't miss any content if you go to www.catholictalkshow.com you'll see every way that you could listen in and where we're syndicated we have wonderful relationships around the world with great people who continue to share our content and we want to thank our patrons and our supporters on our social media channels we're on facebook instagram and twitter and so many people are sharing the show and that is you know truly a mark of how successful this show has been continue to share the content as we share the beauty of our catholic faith now we can't go any further without giving a big shout out to our patrons we would not be able to do this show without your financial contribution if you're considering becoming a supporter of the show go to www.catholictalkshow.com forward slash patreon and you'll see all the tiers and the ways that you could support us and we've got some cool content and gear to send your way as well awesome thank you for that father so i think a good place to start and the first thing that we're going to share that you didn't know about the cross is where the wood from the cross that jesus was crucified on came from now this is something very interesting that i had no clue about until ryan shield just shared it with me in preparation for the show and i think it's going to blow your mind yeah so now there's a lot of pious legends but the most common um story that you'll hear early christians say and the legend that sprung up around the tree is that well first of all the true cross is not made from one type of wood it was actually made from three different types of wood and traditionally those were those woods were cedar pine and cypress now there's a trinitarian nature to that that there's three different types of wood making up the cross and that would explain the titulum the piece of wood that said you know above his head the cross beam would have been one type of wood and the um the the vertical beam would have been another type of wood now according to the legend our ancestors fell through adam and eve right we all know that and we know that they had two sons you know cain and abel right and abel got got and cain got gone right so they had a third son seth now when adam and eve were getting old nearing their death they were longing to go back to the garden and they wanted just a little bit of the oil that would come from the tree of life there to anoint themselves before death so they sent their third son seth and the angel at the gates still there after they expelled would not let seth in to get that but in his in god's mercy he gave seth three seeds to give to adam and those seeds were to be planted with adam's body when he died in adam's mouth and the angel told seth that these seeds because your father's fall came through the fruit of a tree the seeds that grow from his grave will be the trees that bear the fruit that saves your father now there's a whole kind of circular continuity to that but those three seeds would have sprung up and they would have been that cedar pine and cyprus now that's recounted by a lot of early church fathers it sounds like a pious legend and kind of a you know explanation of the three different types of woods and then trinitarian uh theology kind of baked in and then also salvific history but i think that's really important to consider that our fall came from the fruit of a tree but then also from the fruit of a tree using crucifixion our redemption was secured yeah we see god using uh the physical attributes of the world that he's created we've talked about the bethlehem star um you know obviously uh christ was baptized in the jordan it was the lowest geographical place on earth um so you know you have a lot of uh a lot of examples of the mystery of god using the world that he's created to um give us opportunities to glorify him and why not why wouldn't he why wouldn't he do this on the most instrumental um uh you know action that was taken uh by god so yeah i mean that's a a beautiful um story there and i love the cyclical nature of it all and it does i mean it creates a wonderful catechetical delivery of something that that is truly impactful and the scriptures are packed full of it and you know we've had we've had shows where we've talked about senses of scripture and you know when you think of like the directional uh purpose of scripture moving us to encounter god and to a certain morality of life clearly you know utilizing you know these these beautiful you know expressions of of catechesis that the fathers clearly used is something that we could kind of resurrect and talk about and consider when we think about the cross and you know looking looking at these three different types of wood i love looking at that trinitarian uh sense of things like sand augustine you know looking at all of creation in day trinitate and and seeing the triune god actively creating within a triune structure i i love i love that tie what a beautiful uh thank you for sharing that ryan shiel yeah there's there's there's other variations of that but that's kind of the most common one that the early christians would have recounted now the second thing that you probably don't know about the crossing this is one that i remember as a kid i had no idea uh and probably a lot of you out there don't but if you've ever looked at your crucifix right above our lord's head there's a little sign that says i-n-r-i and every you know when we were kids were like we'd ask i'd ask my grandma you know what's henry you know like makes no sense so what that piece of wood above jesus's head is called the titulus crusade or the title of the cross basically in latin and if you read scripture when pilate condemned jesus to death he had a sign written and that to be posted above jesus to say the king of the jews now the jews said we want you to say this he said he was the king of the jews and pilate said i have written what i've written and he was it was ordered to be written in greek hebrew and latin now a lot of people who are proponents of the latin mass will say that the association of those three languages on the cross hebrew latin and greek have sanctified them and made them holy holy languages that's why the scriptures are in greek in hebrew and the liturgies in latin but regardless of that so the sign i-n-r-i is an anagram is short for um iesus nazrenos rex idiorum jesus christ king of the jews so now latin didn't have jays right they had an i you would it wouldn't be g j e-s-u-s it would be i-e-s-u-s so jesus des reinus rex idiorum jesus christ well jesus of nazareth king of the jews that's what i nri says like you know like that sense of uh judah you know like like uh the jews and you know yeah it's it's it's it i get that all the time especially in the church it's like what is that what does that stand for and not what's that ryan oh i was just thinking why did he write that why did a pontius pilate of all people decide to to to write something like that and put it on the cross well it sounds like a mockery to me you know you know if you you know if you ever lost your fantasy football league and then they make you wear a shirt that says i'm a big loser that's kind of what you know pilate was saying this is the king of the jews well this is what romans do to kings right there's no kings in rome and we are the power so it's kind of a taunt to other people who would assume or challenge roman authority now an interesting thing is that that relic is still said to exist in a church uh santa croce in rome i don't know if either of you guys have ever been there yeah i've been there i've prayed there and there there's uh there's huge relics of uh of the for the original cross as well yeah many of the torture is there and um you know an interesting thing is that in scripture they have a particular order right and i excuse me i don't have it memorized but i think in scripture they say that it went hebrew latin and greek or whatever but on the titulus in santa croce it's in a different order now that's a curious thing that if this was a forgery any forager would go and look at scripture and say well this is the order it was written in but then the relic itself is in a different order which kind of lends credence to why would a forger go against what scripture says because that would in most people's mind debunk it so it's a pretty interesting little nuance about the credulity of it all right now the third thing on our list of things you didn't know about the cross is how much the cross actually weighed uh we know from scripture that christ was forced to carry his cross um from his condemnation to golgotha and as we can say how terribly difficult that had been and that he couldn't do it and he had a simon of cyrene had to be pressed into service um but considering how difficult that was you guys right have any ideas about how much you think it would have weighed or what that had been like i mean he didn't carry the whole cross right did he just carry the cross beam you know no one really knows for sure okay i think he just carried like the beam or something like that around his wrist now in most traditional art he'll be carrying the entire cross right um but you know modern scholarship and kind of common sense says he's probably just carrying the cross beam right now there is a that would be because the the vertical um beam is going to be something that's it's really tall right i mean you're going to have to you know um you're going to be executing somebody um and hanging them and and you know you need a good solid base in the ground so i would imagine that that may be part of that reason's eyewitnesses or tradition but also the fact that that initial beam would have to be pretty pretty large and un you know unavailable for human to to carry i don't know and then i think there's mystics to consider too and saint catherine and emmerich and all these different other types of uh devotional things that have happened throughout the history it's important to realize that you know we don't know absolutely but it's it's open for meditation it's open for prayer and you know something that initially comes to mind is just the capacity of jesus in the capacity of his strength humanly speaking you know in carrying the weight of human sinfulness but also carrying the weight of the cross which had to have been heavy i mean it had to be an immense amount of weight for him to carry so much so that he would have needed assistance you know in in in realizing that you know in his humanity he was truly losing blood and and you know he he was hungry he was starving he was he was being persecuted so spiritually emotionally physically you know the exhaustion of jesus carrying the weight of this cross you know the way that i've always imaged it was the fullness of the cross which i believe in the i believe in the um in the passion of the christ of mel gibson it was the full cross but then in other types of devotional films like delacrosse was sharing you know it was just the cross beam so you have many different depictions in art many different depictions and movies but you know to meditate on the the capacity of jesus and his humanity to carry that type of weight is something to really explore but you know with with the sense of what would you know i've carried you know like those uh you know those the wood that's used to carry electrical lines you know and to tie electrical lines to like that's that's heavy dense wood and we're not talking about like go to home depot and pick up you know this kind of this kind of uh a 2x4 or something like that like it would have been dense it wasn't carrying a railroad tie exactly like it it would have been immensely heavy so i'm curious to find out like you know what what did you find in your uh research shield so in the 1870s a french scientist charles de fleury did a kind of comprehensive study on i would say the the physical aspects of the crucifixion not what our lord experienced now we did a whole episode on the science of the crucifixion uh we'll put a link right there it was a great show where we talked about what our lord physically experienced but this particular science scientist charles de fleury it was more about the the implements of the crucifixion so he did some scientific testing on what amount of wood what a cross would have to weigh what a cross would have to be dimensionally shaped like to support a human body right so based on his his research he came up with that the entire cross would have weighed at least 220 pounds so that's dragging a big dude on your shoulders that's you know after you've already been beaten and whipped now if he was just hearing the crossbeam he estimated between 75 and 125 pounds um so i mean when you're thinking about 220 pounds um go carry go carry 200 pound bags of cement on your shoulder and see how far you make it let alone after having been starved sleep deprived whipped beaten crowned with thorns uh you know it really gives sense to why jesus fell three times and jesus would have been a strong robust man he would have been physically fit from walking he was a worker he was not you know a modern veal sitting in his room watching his computer i mean this is a magic of the carpenter's son like you think of the carpenter you know you think of it i i i watched the passion this year first time in like years man i mean like since 2002 or three or something like that and it's kind of interesting the first time i watched it you know i was just overcome with just like i don't know emotion uh at like the reality of of the crucifixion and then like my sins and and how god forgives me and this is the act that he did but the second the second time i watched it i really i didn't i wasn't emotional i was more like overwhelmed at how much of a man he was you know and how much grief he experienced even for our own sins as he was doing this like when he talked to the the women you know um like just the amount of grief that he was able to to muster through all of this physical pain and and the suffering that he uh endured right for this purpose you know um just really really amazing to dwell on uh just the the i don't know the not just the sacrifice but also the the um the suffering that he endured and the the yeah because i can't i can't you know really vibe with artistic expressions of jesus where he's very frail and very kind of effeminized in many different respects and and you know that that's certainly not who jesus was like the grit that you know though he was gentle though he was merciful he was gentle and merciful from from a great place of strength and grit yeah and and power you know like when when he you know confronts roman authority when he confronts uh you know authority within judaism and and the pharisees and the sadducees like this man is speaking from strength and grit right you know and and and hard work you know like the the labors of his adolescence into you know manhood like his public ministry didn't start till he was 30. and you know he was he was laboring you know as the carpenter's son and that's why i think you know when he's back in nazareth no prophet is accepted in his hometown you know when he's back in nazareth who's who's this guy this is the this is the carpenter's son like who is he you know it's stepping up and and speaking with this type of authority you know yeah all of a sudden he's like the rabbi yeah yeah and and that's why you know when we when we there was a there was a priest at uh in seminary father steve olds which i'm sure you remember yeah uh father olds but father olds would say like every analogy limps you know and and same thing with like artistic expressions in movies like all of it's going to limp all of it's going to just like it'll move us in a direction but we can't just like stop there yeah and you look at the divine mercy image when you know for me personally the original divine mercy image is definitely one of you know absolutely my favorite out of all of them i'm not a big fan of the later renditions at all but even st faustina looking at that image was like she was unhappy with it she was totally unhappy with it you know so i think that's important for you know meditating on the person of jesus christ and and really allowing yourself to to entertain who is the person of jesus christ and and how did he suffer and i do i'm inclined to to consider you know if if he had simon of cyrene join him in carrying that cross it was a beast you know and simon felt the weight of it let alone jesus christ carrying carrying the heaviest aspect of that of that cross yeah i think also too just personally speaking and meditating on this the strength of our lord um that you know god willed this strong man like this this divine uh person of the holy trinity taking the form of a slave uh uh as as a man and you know you look at that and this world just wants to run away from pain and suffering even you know i and i get it you know it's a very you it's a very uh i guess common response but it's reasonable in some sense you need that supernatural assistance but like if if christ's strength can't give you the courage you know to to face your fears like i mean that's that's something that i think will can assist somebody in that movement from the natural to the supernatural you know yeah christ said you're unworthy of me unless you carry pick up your cross and carry it after me i mean yeah really i mean that's he's calling us look there is a cross to carry in life whether what your cross can be a lot of things and father rich i'm sure in your ministry you've seen so many different forms of crosses that people have carried whether it's through physical pain whether it's through psychological or spiritual damage whether it's damage inflicted on themselves or by others i mean there's a lot of crosses out there being carried by people every day and you'll be walking past someone in the street and you might not you'll just see someone walking but you might not know that spiritually they're carrying a 220-pound cross on their back too following our lord so have a little leniency with other people because you don't know what kind of mystical cross is bound to their back that's right and it's the privilege of the office you know i get to sit in the seat of christ as president and persona christie over the sacramental mysteries of the church and to be a steward over his bride his holy bride the church and to receive uh people coming into my office uh or coming into the church sacramentally and and to visibly and and audibly like perceive people's suffering is is the greatest most humbling thing that i do and and what is expressed to me and what's articulated in that sharing experience is more of a crown like looking at one's suffering that is actively transforming someone that's bearing the weight of their suffering for the sake of god for the glory of god because there's glory within the cross the cross is worthy of adoration because from it we experience redemption from it we experience the salvation of the world in the cross of christ and she'll just she'll just mentioned the scriptures from matthew chapter 16 and it's the conditions of following christ this is why as catholics we make the sign of the cross prior to every single liturgical action when we're blessing our food the way we start our day the way we conclude our day you know it is always by the mystery of the cross and our lives ought to be conformed to it right at the very beginning of our journey in our christianity we are baptized and conformed to the mystery of the cross the priest signs us with the cross on our forehead then following after the priest the parents and godparents sign us with the cross and as often as we enter into the church we are renewing our baptism every time we dip our fingers into the holy water making the sign of the cross so that we are appropriating that call to carry our cross that's the condition so we have to keep that in mind then jesus said to his disciples if anyone wants to be a follower of mine let him renounce himself and how do we renounce ourselves take up your cross and follow me that is the instrument of renouncing ourselves is the cross anyone who wants to save his life will lose it but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it and that is the product of renunciation of self is that we discover why we exist and when we pair our sufferings with christ there is something that is just immensely powerful that comes out of it and and we begin to see beyond this life into the next yeah imagine like us talking about the weight of the cross and turning it into this like adoration of our lord yeah so uncharacteristic it is well you know lenny bruce he was a comedian back in the 60s he said look you know it's always struck him as weird that christians would walk around with a cross on there you know on their wall or on their body or whatever he's like that would be like today people walking around with a electric chair on a chain right yeah and for most people i mean the cross and the jews and the early christians the cross was a sign of you reviled it right it was it was terrifying um and that's gets us into our our fourth point is why do catholics have the body of christ on a cross when protestants have just a plain cross with no body or no corpus that's a very particular thing and a lot of protestants don't like it they're like oh you're you're crucifying jesus again by having him on a by having him on the cross christ is risen he's not dead he's risen so why do you still show him his dead uh it's actually part of canon law that every catholic church has to have a crucifix with a corpus on it above the altar that is because that is calvary that is the focus of our worship and if you look at first corinthians 1 23 saint paul says we preach christ crucified a stumbling block to jews and foolishness to the gentiles right who worships somebody who is crucified who worships someone who was executed i mean that doesn't sound like someone you worship you worship someone who wins you worship someone who won the war won the game won the battle whatever it is and to the people at the time they're like this is you know the earliest image of jesus christ known to mankind is called the alexa mendoz graffito and it's a little graffiti written on a roman wall where two roman soldiers were picking on another one and it's a donkey on a cross and the roman says alexa menos worships his god they're like this is complete folly and madness and foolishness but catholics we worship christ crucified and resurrected but right there even that verse right there shows why catholics have that corpus on the cross not just a plain cross yeah how many of us worship you know athletics and and the victories of our teams or the victories of our favorite players it's like our whole conversation our time is absorbed in it that's why i love pope benedict he helps me to examine examine my conscience all the time when he says you will know that which you worship for that for which you have time and it's like when i see my time being absorbed into into these different athletic moments and you know wanting to see the new york knicks raise the you know the trophy and and their their you know victors you know again you know like but when you consider these beautiful videos that you see out in the world wide web and a kid who's running and then one of their opponents begins to fail and their muscles begin to fail and they begin to stumble and fall and they fall and hit the ground and you see you know one of these young kids go over and pick that child up and carry that child across the the finish line like doesn't that touch your heart isn't that incredible that somebody would be willing to lose for the sake of someone to get them across the finish line and you know it's again it's just an analogy but the fact that that christ died shows an even greater virtue than conquering militaristically the roman authority to to throw down the powers of judaism in his time you know because of the infractions of their leadership like no like jesus does something even more immensely virtuous in reaching out not only to the outcasts within judaism not only reaching out to uh the gentiles but reaching out to the lepers reaching out to the people who were unclean reaching out to the woman caught in adultery reaching out to the woman who has been in five different types of relationships you know like that is what is immensely beautiful about jesus willing to you know renounce so much of public acclaim because he could have pursued that and and been successful but he was willing to sacrifice himself renounce himself for the sake of those who were most outcasts yeah and it's the compassion of god made manifest in the the god becoming flesh it's the compassion of god in the um the principalities that are stronger than us that fight us and and deliver us into sin you know which we pray that god would deliver us from and and and that sin and contrast to the cross is profound because you know you talk about death right so christ dying in the these these instances you're talking about is the self-giving death right it it it dot it's it's the guy going into battle it's the guy going into battle right ahead of his soldiers showing the example of literally giving your life whether you live or die in that particular instance but it's that self-giving death that is so inspiring to us and then you see in our society this self-selfish killing right like you see you see the killing of people as the selfishness and the juxtaposition of the cross and and let us not forget our brothers and sisters being persecuted all around the world you know right now um you know it's you're right it's like william wallace out in front of the line yelling you know freedom and then as he's getting killed he's yelling freedom but there's something else that we yell freedom about and that's because if you go to catholictalkshow.com forward slash hollow you are going to get the number one catholic app hollow for free freedom freedom not a [ __ ] why did you tell them ryan how they could take advantage of this william wallace-like offer well you definitely need to check out hallow today make sure you go through our website though so that you can get that free trial yeah i mean hal is great i i prayed uh lectio divina before our our show today so i'm a i'm a very happy and proud user my wife and i have started praying it together my daughter and i prayed in the car you know when we're driving around um so just amazing resources that you know since i started using it they've added so much to it they have the bible podcast in a year a lot of beautiful music it's the rosary i mean it's it's just becoming this amazing force for good in our church look there's father mike it's so true father mike schmitz bible in a year there's so many so many beautiful resources from the tradition and history of christian prayer and meditation make sure you're checking it out there's something else that's free okay and that is what ave rosary is doing now of a rosary if you go to ave rosary.com it's a it's an amazing site that sells and offers some of the most beautiful heirloom quality rosaries a good quality rosary i mean how often in your life have you gotten a rosary and it's just you know plastic beads and twine i mean it's still a fascist but when you're praying the rosary you have something beautiful to reflect the spiritual bouquet that you're giving to mary but one of the great things about ave rosary is that they have bundles designed to be given as a gift because most of us already have a rosary now you might be in the market for a new rosary but chances are you want to be sharing the rosary with someone else so they have these great gift bundles you know for men or women that you could send a rosary but the really cool thing about ave rosary is that for every rosary you buy ave rosary donates a rosary to be given to people who can't afford one so it's like buy one get one these rosaries go to the cfrs and the cfrs are able to distribute them to you know poor people people who have of no faith people who have never had a rosary so every time you get a rosary you're getting the spiritual graces of yourself praying the rosary but you're also able to um share the rosary with someone else i mean that's that's a really really awesome concept so go to ave rosary.com check out the different kinds of rosaries they have their rosary bundles men's women's rosaries and all the accessories and for for you guys out there i have the uh the man of god rosary bundle and it's a paracord which i just absolutely love so if you are in the market for a new rosary it's certainly one of the nicest rosaries that i have currently that i'm using which is is really cool that's awesome all right so thank you again to our sponsors now the fifth and final item that we wanted to talk about of things you didn't know about the cross is that every time you pass by or see a cross there is a prayer you should say and also by saying this prayer catholics who are in the right state are able to also gain an indulgence father rich would you share it and pray that prayer for everyone absolutely let's begin in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen look it down upon me good and gentle jesus well before your face i humbly kneel and with burning soul pray and beseech you to fix deep in my heart lively sentiments of faith hope and charity true contrition for my sins and a firm purpose of amendment while i contemplate with great love and tender pity your five most precious wounds pondering over them within me and calling to mind the words which david your prophet said to you my jesus they have pierced my hands and my feet they have numbered all of my bones amen amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen yeah and that's called the prayer before crucifix um really powerful prayer and and again you know we can have a crucifix in our house and and we walk past it it just becomes another thing on the wall and we and we forget the reverence that is due to the bridge to heaven to the implement that our salvation was one on um traditionally people would say this after receiving communion during mass or after mass had ended and there's actually an indulgence attached to it so if if you go to mass and you are you satisfy the the requirements of receiving an indulgence right um and you say that prayer before crucifix after receiving communion you get a partial indulgence if you say it on a friday's a friday during lent you get a plenary or a full indulgence so number one it's an amazing opportunity to receive that indulgence and that mercy from the treasury of graces but it's also right and just for us to give homage and exalt the cross and lift the cross up high and you know when we think about the triumph of the cross and why the cross is worthy of adoration upon it christ has died for us and he accomplishes many things he accomplishes our salvation he accomplishes us and encourages us to overcome our fear of death and when we when we truly reverence the cross we realize that i am unafraid to carry my own cross and follow christ and christ is reproving us and strengthening us and calling us to a certain level of grit to be able to follow after him with the capacity that he has given us to embrace our human suffering i want to share with you the words of saint jose maria escriva when he said it is important to realize the corpus of christ on the cross and to realize he who won salvation for us but when you see a cross without christ it is to remind you that you too have a cross to bear so my brothers and sisters be not afraid to take up your cross and follow the savior and when we reflect on what he accomplished on that cross he has provided from from that cross the gift of his holy spirit and the very sacramental life of the church that gives us that strength you can do all things through christ who strengthens you and know of our prayers and please continue to pray for us as we build that solidarity of faith as we carry the cross together toward the kingdom of heaven god bless you and we'll see you next week [Music] you

Channel: The Catholic Talk Show

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Keywords: Catholic, Catholic Podcast, Catholic Talk Show, Ryan Scheel, Ryan DellaCrosse, Father Rich Pagano, Catholic Radio, Catholic TV, Catholic Show, Matt Fradd, Mike Schmitz, Robert Barron, Catholic Answers, Catholic Stuff You Should Know, Bishop Barron, Breaking In The Habit, Crucifix, Cross, INRI, The Crucifixtion

Id: rrdI16xLY-o

Length: 38min 19sec (2299 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 12 2021