My mind cannot wander to Jerusalem this year, without feeling a deep solidarity with my Jewish brothers and sisters, in Israel, under daily assault from suicide bombers, and in the shadow cast by a horrible war — the backward shadow of a war that is approaching. I pray for the Muslims, too, with all who stand at Heaven’s Gate, who must walk through “the valley of the shadow of death.”

But for the Jews I pray in solidarity, for they are once again under attack, not because there is a war, but because they are Jews.

After the Holocaust we vowed: Never again. Have we already forgotten?

It is time for all Christendom to remember: Never again. That we will not stand by, as Jewish people — as pregnant mothers, children, teenagers, old women and old men — are selected for extermination. That we are not indifferent in this matter, that we are not neutrals as between the victim and the murderer. That as Christians, and in the name of Christ, we stand by our brother and sister Jews.

In many parts of the world, Christians are also under attack, from the same murderous ideology, because they are Christians. In some places, it is Shia Muslims, or other minorities, under attack. And likewise, we stand by them, our own in Christ’s mercy. And by all those, believers or not, for whose blood the fanatics cry.

My Bible keeps falling open at Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear.”

David Warren

It is the death of the Eternal Word of God made flesh, which is our great lesson how to think and how to speak of this world. His Cross has put its due value upon every thing which we see, upon all fortunes, all advantages, all ranks, all dignities, all pleasures; upon the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. It has set a price upon the excitements, the rivalries, the hopes, the fears, the desires, the efforts, the triumphs of mortal man. It has given a meaning to the various, shifting course, the trials, the temptations, the sufferings, of his earthly state. It has brought together and made consistent all that seemed discordant and aimless. It has taught us how to live, how to use this world, what to expect, what to desire, what to hope. It is the tone into which all the strains of this world’s music are ultimately to be resolved.

Look around, and see what the world presents of high and low. Go to the court of princes. See the treasure and skill of all nations brought together to honour a child of man. Observe the prostration of the many before the few. Consider the form and ceremonial, the pomp, the state, the circumstance; and the vainglory. Do you wish to know the worth of it all? look at the Cross of Christ.

Go to the political world: see nation jealous of nation, trade rivalling trade, armies and fleets matched against each other. Survey the various ranks of the community, its parties and their contests, the strivings of the ambitious, the intrigues of the crafty. What is the end of all this turmoil? the grave. What is the measure? the Cross.

Go, again, to the world of intellect and science: consider the wonderful discoveries which the human mind is making, the variety of arts to which its discoveries give rise, the all but miracles by which it shows its power; and next, the pride and confidence of reason, and the absorbing devotion of thought to transitory objects, which is the consequence. Would you form a right judgment of all this? look at the Cross.

Again: look at misery, look at poverty and destitution, look at oppression and captivity; go where food is scanty, and lodging unhealthy. Consider pain and suffering, diseases long or violent, all that is frightful and revolting. Would you know how to rate all these? gaze upon the Cross.

Thus in the Cross, and Him who hung upon it, all things meet; all things subserve it, all things need it. It is their centre and their interpretation. For He was lifted up upon it, that He might draw all men and all things unto Him.

Ven. John Henry, Cardinal Newman (1801-1890)