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St. Francis of Assisi began his Passion of the Holy Cross on the evening of Maunday Thursday,or Holy Thursday. The Church year seemed to revolve about this Agony which gave birth to the Christmas of our Salvation.

I mentioned a while ago that Advent last year had seemed a creche made from the timber of the cross.

Now I recall that creche, the sanctuary of the first birth. As I prepare for the cradle of our Salvation,it is a gallows,through which an agonizing birth slips down the birth canal into the prison of a borrowed tomb.

And Christ arises and the christalis is transformed into the butterfly of our eternal life.

This life is like the life cycle of the Butterfly. The eggs of infancy, the caterpillar of childhood, its cristalis,our coming to new birth,our dying to self. The Butterfly the birthing into New life in him.

Cross to cradle.