ow I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures." 1 Corinthians 15:1-3
Recently a few fellow Knights and I got into a discussion about the difference between the Catholic Crucifix and the (generally speaking) Protestant cross, that is the cross without the Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ on it. Of what importance is the Corpus, as a spiritual aid and as an element of our faith? How different are the symbols, and why should Catholics care if we use the plain cross or the Crucifix?
"In a word, the authentic Crucifix is everything!"
In a word, the authentic Crucifix is everything! As an aid on which to meditate, the Corpus reminds us of the suffering Christ endured; we offer the frustrations, pain and suffering in our own lives up to him, since he died for us. Ever try to meditate on this while staring at an unadorned cross? It can be done, but you must admit it’s just not the same.
But I think there is something fundamentally more at stake. The Crucifix freezes in time that moment when God allowed Himself to be sacrificed in atonement for the sins of all mankind, for all time; it is like the Mass itself, at which we return to that same moment, mystically, each time we kill and eat the flesh of the Christ. Those Protestant (and Catholic!) churches who have abandoned the Crucifix risk losing the understanding of the very essence of Salvation: not only the moment of death of Jesus on the Cross, but the very fact that God could die a physical death, because He had lowered himself to take on a human nature in the Incarnation. Without the Incarnation, mankind is not saved, but remains adrift in an unending cycle of covenants broken by a fallible humanity. It takes God Himself to create, and fulfill, the unbreakable Covenant by providing the ultimate, perfect Sacrificial Lamb for us to slaughter and consume.
All of previous salvation history is a practice for the divine moment captured on the Crucifix. But indeed, we see Protestants having abandoned the Crucifix as well as the Eucharist, and in fact nearly all of the Sacraments, by no coincidence; as if Jesus wasn’t the God-man who suffered and died but was only a symbol of a man, or God in a clever disguise. Without the Incarnation, mankind is not saved; without the Crucifix, the Son has not been Incarnated for his divine mission and therefore need not have existed at all.
It is vitally important that we Catholics resist the temptation to do away with the Crucifix. Rather, pray for the strength to accept the Truth, and for the conversion of all mankind.