Two ways of looking up to the cross is to ask for mercy and forgiveness because of our sins that have caused Him so much suffering or to look up to the Cross with confidence that He has already saved us so that we can now go on with our lives in joy and effectiveness in doing His will.

In preparation for His coming suffering and humiliation Our Lord tried to prepare the Apostles and His other followers. First He asserted His Divinity by defining Himself as "I am" or "I am who am." It meant that He was the source of existence, God the Creator. He repeated that He came from the Father and spoke only what the Father wanted Him to speak. With this clear, He told them that He will be lifted up in shame, a death in the most shameful way that of being crucified as any common criminal. He used the lifting up of the bronze seraph serpents by Moses when the Jewish people were bitten by these serpents. And who ever looked up to the bronze serpents they were cured. (Up to now physicians use this symbol of the two serpents.) When we look up to Jesus on the cross we would be saved. When we look up to a crucifix we normally ask for pardon. We ask for mercy or we thank Him for His sacrifice and promise to do something in reparation for our transgressions. Sometimes we only use one of these but we can do both, namely, to ask pardon and at the same time resolve to do something in gratitude for the salvation bought by His suffering and death.

When we speak of the cross we need to link it with the triumph of the resurrection. My mother used to say, "Pag may Biernes Santo, may Sabado de Gloria." (With Good Friday comes the glory of the resurrection.) It used to be that every room of pious Catholics was decorated with a cross. We need to constantly look up to the cross asking for pardon for the many mistakes and faults we do during the day but we also need to look up to the Cross with resolve and thanksgiving to live up to our calling and do something in thanksgiving for His grant of salvation.

Each year on Good Friday we are reminded of the supreme sacrifice made by Jesus, the God/man. Aided by fast and abstinence we bring up the emotions of sorrow but at the same time are fortified by the thought that we have been saved through the pure mercy of God. Nothing we can do or think can deserve salvation which a complete gift of God. This is love. He preferred us to His Son, our God made man. This gives us the hope that we, creatures that we will be united to the Creator. There is no justification for his union of the creature to the Creator. And yet this is the only thing that will satisfy the longings of the human heart that aspires to the limitless because he can think or imagine the limitless and therefore he wants it. Nothing short of perfect happiness can satisfy the human heart. And it is the cross that gives him this hope to being united to the Creator in perfect happiness.

Good Friday is then the yearly reminder of our salvation. We do not deserve it nor will we ever deserve it. It is a free gift made on the first Good Friday. He sacrificed Himself for our salvation. All that is asked of us is to apply this salvation to ourselves and act out our lives in thanksgiving for His gift.