For the first time in 11 years, the sun set yesterday with the shadow of a cross spilling out into the Mojave Desert. After a long and bitter battle, the seven-foot veterans' memorial was finally back in its rightful place on Sunrise Rock. For the VFW, Liberty Institute, caretakers Henry and Wanda Sandoz, and everyone who fought to save the Mojave Desert Cross, it was the perfect way to celebrate Veterans' Day. Before a crowd of more than 100, supporters rededicated the cross to the memory of America 's fallen heroes. "Judges and lawyers may have played their roles," said Liberty attorney Hiram Sasser, "but it was the veterans who earned this memorial, and it is for them that it rises once more." For the legal team, the victory was a long time coming. In 2010, after nine years of defending the memorial in court, a majority of justices agreed to keep the cross on its remote patch of desert land. But before the Sandozes could reinstate the monument, it was stolen. Maybe the vandals thought hiding the cross could make it disappear from our collective consciences.
They were wrong. Plans were soon under way for another memorial. In fact, no one knew what had become of the old cross until last week when the San Mateo County Sheriff's office was called to a property in San Francisco Bay--hundreds of miles away. There, police found the object of years of litigation tied to a fence post. The attached note asked someone to contact the authorities. Although the discovery meant that the caretakers could return the original to its hilltop home, they opted for a new cross and a fresh start. Today, it crowns Sunrise Rock--not unlike the millions of crosses marking graves across our nation, each one reminding us of the great sacrifices made on our behalf. On this Veterans Day, we honor the brave men and women across the generations who served, and the many who laid down their lives in America's noblest cause: freedom. It is because of them that we can lift high this cross--and all others.
The spiritual climax of the Gospel of John, as Father John Waiss points out, occurs at the foot of the Cross, where Jesus utters his parting words: “Woman, behold, your son!” and “Behold your mother!” (John 19:26-27). While these words were addressed to the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the Church has long understood this moment as a universal adoption. To truly image Christ, we must share in His parentage; if we embrace God as our spiritual Father but reject Mary as our mother, we treat Christ as a half-brother rather than our "firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). As Origen noted as early as the third century, the profound depths of the Gospel are only accessible to those who, like John, rest their heads on Jesus’ breast and receive Mary into their own homes. This maternal role is deeply rooted in biblical typology, positioning Mary as the fulfillment of the great mothers of the Old Covenant. She is the New Eve , the mother of all the living according ...