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PART II
9. THE CROSS AND THE RAINBOW
“You must not look too much at other
graces, nor stop at them, but at the Divine Fountain, whence the streams flow.
They are good because they issue from the fountain" (
As we see the water and blood flowing from the side of Christ, I can visualize other
covenants from the past, present here, from the rainbow with Noah, to the blood
of animals shed by Abraham and Moses. In the case of the rainbow, as a symbol of the Covenant
with Noah, we see a more universal covenant with humanity, in connection with
the Cross, while the covenants with
Abraham and Moses are those done between God and the people of
Christ, in His humanity,
expresses perfectly, the Love God has for us. This, known in Theology, is when
Christ is called the Proto-Sacrament: Christ
expresses visibly who the Father is. This is behind the idea of what sacrament means.
Jesus said to him, "Have I been
with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has
seen me has seen the Father".
(John 14:9a)
In the same way, the Church
is the Sacrament of Christ. It is through
the Church, that we see Christ, despite its limitations. We could ask
ourselves, what connection does this have with a rainbow? Let us first imagine water coming down on us as rain that transforms the earth.
Yet, just as from the heavens the rain
and snow come down and do not return there till they have watered the earth,
making it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to the one who sows and bread to
the one who eats, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall
not return to me empty, but shall do what pleases me, achieving the end for which
I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11)
This is a movement of the rain coming from above, accomplishes
its purpose, only to evaporate and return to the sky. In the same way, the Son
of God, who is the Word of God in Person, humbles Himself, becoming a human being
and even more so as he accepts the Cross, is raised up to be honored above
every other name. (Philippians 2: 5-11) He comes down to us, so to say, through
the incarnation through Mary, and ascends back to the Father with His
ascension, after generating New Life in us.
How many times have we seen a
rainbow form through the rain or waterfall? It is the light
that is split into seven beautiful and distinct colors. I visualize these seven
colors as the seven sacraments that applies God's grace to different dimensions
and periods of our life that spring from the Church, the Sacrament of Christ:- [1]
Ø
The blue waters of baptism I like to
connect to our birth in Christ, often received when we are babies.
Ø
The yellow bread, I relate to our need to
be nourished not only physically but spiritually through the Eucharist.
Ø
The fiery orange, I see related to our Confirmation, when the Spirit invites
us to come out of our childhood as passive members of Christ, and of the
Church, and become fired up, to
become active members. It corresponds to our need to leave behind our
childhood, and embrace the passage to adulthood.
Ø
The violet, I like to connect to the
penitential sacrament of reconciliation, as we all mess up and make mistakes
along the way in life. We can compare less serious sins to scraping our knees
when we fall. More serious sins, we could compare with allowing ourselves be
hypnotized by a sneaky, crafty snake, who craws into the weakest crevice of our
being, only to inject its deadly venom.
Ø
The indigo, I see related to marriage, the
sacrament that symbolizes the relationship between Christ (New Adam) and the
Church (New Eve). It is the sacrament for adults, who have matured to the
point, where they are able to take up the responsibility of forming a vital,
small community of their own, a living cell that builds up society and the
Church. While people marry around the world, the distinctiveness of the
Christian marriage is that it elevates its nature, to a much more mature form.
This is expressed in a beautiful way in the Encyclical of Humanae Vitae, when
St. Pope Paul VI speaks of what "Conjugal love" and "paternal
responsibility" entail. (Humanae Vitae 9 -10)
Ø
The red, I associate with another
vocational expression, for those who sacrifice
their lives like the shedding of red
blood, for the sake of service to
Christ and His Church, in the ministerial priesthood. Their role is to
visualize Christ, in His leadership role,
of mediating between the faithful and God, in the name of Christ.
Ø
The green, represents the color of hope,
and therefore addresses the area of sickness and end stages of life on earth,
giving a sense that people’s suffering is not in vain. On the contrary, it
acquires meaning, as we turn them into a meaningful prayer of joyous offering,
as St. Peter teaches us (1 Peter 4:13) and
as
In
that same movement in life, we are also called to embrace death, with the hope
of passing over, into the plenitude of life for all eternity. Death is no
longer something that I passively endure, but something that I actively take
part in, as a personal decision to move on, embracing the last birth into
Eternity, as Christ did on the Cross.
"Jesus cried out in a loud voice,
"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit"; and when he had said
this he breathed his last." (Luke 23:46)
We have seen the connection
between the different covenants, throughout the history of Salvation,
culminating in the New and Eternal Covenant, sealed once and forever on the
Cross by Jesus, which becomes present to us today, through the commemoration at
the Eucharistic Prayer: "Do this in Memory (commemoration)[2] of
Me…"
In the same way, we can see
the historical connection with Christ's
Pasch and with each of the sacraments, during the emancipation of the
people of
Ø
The Passover meal
in
Ø
The liberating
experience of crossing the Red Sea (Exodus 14:1-31), reminds us of Jesus' Baptism in the
Ø
The journey
through the
Ø
The Covenant at
Ø
The election of
the body of priests among the Levites, reminds us of Jesus selecting His
apostles as leaders. This reminds us of the sacrament of Orders.
You are to give the Levites charge of
the tabernacle of the covenant with all its equipment and all that belongs to
it. It is they who shall carry the tabernacle with all its equipment and who
shall be its ministers; and they shall camp all around the tabernacle. (Numbers
1:50)
When day came, he (Jesus) called his
disciples to himself, and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named
apostles (Luke 6:13)
Ø
The feeding in
the desert with the manna is
connected with Jesus’ multiplication of the bread, and to us, receiving Him, as
the Living Bread come down from
heaven (John 6), through the sacrament of the Eucharist.
Ø
The event of the
Israelites sinfulness, who were punished by being bitten by serpents in the
desert, and ultimately saved, when they gaze on the brass serpent, reminds us
of Jesus, who says that he would be raised on high as the serpent in the
desert. (Numbers 21:5-9) This reminds us of the sacrament of
reconciliation.
Ø
As I mentioned in
the introduction, I take the liberty to associate the sacrament of Confirmation with the water, which is
brought out of the rock, for the thirsty Israelites (Exodus 17: 1-17) to drink
from. This will strengthen them in the Spirit, so to say, in order to be able
to fight the battle against the Amalekites, symbolizing the Evil One.
Meanwhile, Moses holds his arms outstretched during the battle, a condition
necessary for the Israelites to win the battle against the Amalekites. In the
same way, Jesus, as he hangs on the Cross, with outstretched arms, wins the
battle against the Evil One, with His unconditional love.
Then Amalek came and waged war against
There is another more
explicit passage, of the spirit being given to a specific person.
The Lord said to Moses: See, I have singled out Bezalel, son of Uri,
son of Hur, of the tribe of
Ø
Finally we have
the entry of the Israelites into the
When those bearing the ark came to the
Jordan and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were immersed in the waters
of the Jordan—which overflows all its banks during the entire season of the
harvest—the waters flowing from upstream halted, standing up in a single heap
for a very great distance indeed, from Adam, a city in the direction of
Zarethan; those flowing downstream toward the Salt Sea of the Arabah
disappeared entirely. Thus the people crossed over opposite
10. THE CROSS AND THE
CATERPILLAR