Like nothing else in all the world [the Crucifix seems to ask the questions: “Where do you stand?” “Which side do you propose to take from this moment on — My side, or the side of moneyed Judas, cowardly Pilate, crafty Annas, or lustful Herod?” We cannot escape an answer. If on that Cross were someone who himself had been wrong and failed and had compromised with goodness, we could plead and excuse. But here neutrality is impossible, because there is no question of something more good or less good — there is only right and wrong.… We cannot be on both sides, anymore than we can be in Light and Darkness at the same time. . . .
Evil must work its power to the bitter end, use all its hatred, exhaust all its deceits, unsheathe all of its bloody swords, that being exhausted Goodness may be revealed as triumphant. And now that evil was spent in the final act of crucifixion, seeing that in Justice the last farthing was paid in the red coin of His blood and the mortgage against man paid back, He uttered His Cry of Triumph: “It is consummated … Father into thy hands I comment my spirit.” All history, pagan and Jewish, looked forward to this moment; Heaven and earth were separated — now they could be united. The Pontiff or Bridge-builder has spanned the shores of eternity and time, and the Bridge is the Cross. The last rivet has been put in place; the last nail driven; there is no “unfinished symphony”; with Him — It is consummated.
Archbishop Ven. Fulton J. Sheen
