My Cross — The overthrow of Hell, the Battle of Archangel Michael with Lucifer, by the Swiss painter Hans Leu the Elder, ca. 1500, displayed in the Kunsthaus museum in Zurich. On the top right, the flag of the modern state of Israel, with the shining *star* of David, which only in modern ages became the identitarian symbol of the Jewish culture and religion. On the bottom, the Palestinian flag as sometimes is displayed in its vertical position, with the *bloody* red triangle in the “revolted” position, in the opposite way with respect to the natural shape of a mountain, with the base (the multiplicity, the fleet, the people) on the top and the apex on the bottom.

My father reproaches Catholics for not speaking about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. So he reproaches me. And he's right. But Catholics used to pray before they speak, and they pray a lot, because their wisdom is not their own. They're also prudent, which is a great virtue for us. Then, when they do speak, they always speak about Israel and Palestine, but with our symbols, more true because eternal: God dead on the Cross for the salvation of all. Even this atrocious war will pass, but more atrocious is the Cross, and the One who will never pass away is Jesus: the God who, out of love for those inferior to Him —men— made Himself the last among them and died like a sinner —“like a serpent”¹— on the symbol of torture, the Cross. The Light chose the darkest death, alone as a foreigner, naked as a slave, yet “His people did not receive Him”². The Jews-after-the-diaspora —those who did not accept Christ on the Cross as Messiah even after the destruction of their Temple in 70 A.D., those who expected a soldier on a horse, not a preacher on a donkey— did not accept their own “death”, the death of their identity, as Jesus did, as the seed does which must die to give birth to a vine that bears fruits³, because they did not want to welcome into their Temple the least, the inferior, the “dogs”⁴: the Gentiles, us. They did not accept the death that gives life, that is, the sacrifice of oneself for one's neighbours.

Since that Temple was always theirs —and it was—, since they were the first —and they were—, they deceived themselves into thinking they could claim ownership of it, but the ownership belongs to God alone and the Kingdom of God is for everyone, even for the least. Indeed, blessed are the least, for they shall know God first⁵.

It is the sin of Lucifer, the first star in the sky, the most beautiful and intelligent angel, who thought he shines with his own light, who wanted to be the Sun, who claimed light for himself and became jealous of God's “crazy love” for men, His ugly and imperfect creatures. It is the sin of Cain, the first son of the first men, who out of envy of God's love for his younger brother became the first murderer. Just as God said “do not touch Cain”⁶, Catholics today, like Saint Augustine in the past⁷, say do not touch the Jews, do not forget their error (their mark), learn mercy, do not judge, cast away the sword: all very Christian things to do indeed⁸.

Many accuse the Catholic Church of having created antisemitism, but if we look at it historically, all the European religions were swept away —the tree of Thor⁹, the temples of Athena— the Jewish religion was the only one defended and preserved through time. It was when Christianity was abandoned by the society, when humanity lost the center of the Universe, when man was reduced to nothing but an animal-ape, with his DNA, no longer with his heart, with his title “sapiens”, no longer “beloved by God”, that the temptation to annihilate the Jews resurfaced, in the name of “purity”, of “cleansing” what is superfluous, marginal, land-less, inferior, “stupid”. As with the Protestants when, in their frenzy, they destroyed the statues of the new Woman, Mary, “cleansed” the useless things, the beautiful decorations, and removed death from the crucifix because it “ruins the cross”¹⁰and scares the babies.

Churches clean and empty, as the Square Colosseum^fig. Everyone young and perfect, because we send the terminally ill to Switzerland to die¹¹. And so into the gas chambers also went the genetically undesirable and the gypsies, those who today end up in the flush of abortion clinics^link and in the garbage dumps of the cities. “Lives not worth living” , “we're doing them a favor”, they teach us to say. Pope Francis called it the “throwaway culture”¹², where all who are not “young, useful, productive and strong” end up.

So we teach young girls to be “tough”, not soft, “leaders”, not perfect disciples like Mary, to be as far as possible from the ground, to not get dirty with “dust”¹³, with death, to be powerful astronauts!, in the sterile emptiness. We teach them that there's something fundamentally wrong with how they're born, they should fix it, and clean it: some of them then take that literally, they remove the dead marginal curvy part from their head, their long hair, or more drastically and irreversibly, they make their body straight with a scalpel.

No one is spared, not even Nature, the friend of Saint Francis, so earthly, delicate, inefficient, stupid, beautiful but useless in this world: ignored, mortified, exploited. Pope Francis warned: “many are the projects of dehumanization of the Devil”¹⁴, and many are his lies, which tempt us, then convince us, then make us his advocates.

Squarred Colosseum — Two examples of “straightening“ of femininity, with symbols of buildings and cars, which can be considered “feminine“ —as they are across cultures— since they contain humans. In the fascist Squared Colosseum, the curveness of the Roman counterpart is replaced by four *right* angles; the original colorfulness of the outside walls is replaced by cleaned pure whiteness; the natural stones of the travertine are replaced by artificial concrete, "reinforced" by steel. The Elon Musk's Cybertruck replaces all the typical curvy lines of an automobile with awkward sharp angles; plastic and soft parts are replaced by (anti-*death*) stain-less steel and bullet-proof glass. Both the examples hide a lie: the travertine only covers the concrete due to a lack of money and delay in the construction; the glass windows of the car broke during an early presentation event^link and the sharp lines seem almost impossible to be correctly assembled at scale^link. Notably, also the surgery for women desiring to be men attacks the curveness of the female body, the “house” or “temple” of the soul: the breast with mastectomy and flanks and butt with liposuction. No surprise that a “rebel” and “revengeful“ son of Musk desires now to be a woman, and Musk called him “dead“^link. In the same way, modern surgery too sells a lie to young girls, or an exterior “cover” or “mask”.

Two examples of “straightening“ of femininity, with symbols of buildings and cars, which can be considered “feminine“ —as they are across cultures— since they contain humans. In the fascist Squared Colosseum, the curveness of the Roman counterpart is replaced by four *right* angles; the original colorfulness of the outside walls is replaced by cleaned pure whiteness; the natural stones of the travertine are replaced by artificial concrete, "reinforced" by steel. The Elon Musk's Cybertruck replaces all the typical curvy lines of an automobile with awkward sharp angles; plastic and soft parts are replaced by (anti-*death*) stain-less steel and bullet-proof glass. Both the examples hide a lie: the travertine only covers the concrete due to a lack of money and delay in the construction; the glass windows of the car broke during an early presentation event^link and the sharp lines seem almost impossible to be correctly assembled at scale^link. Notably, also the surgery for women desiring to be men attacks the curveness of the female body, the “house” or “temple” of the soul: the breast with mastectomy and flanks and butt with liposuction. No surprise that a “rebel” and “revengeful“ son of Musk desires now to be a woman, and Musk called him “dead“^link. In the same way, modern surgery too sells a lie to young girls, or an exterior “cover” or “mask”.

God promised justice for those of His people who did not accept Him and destroyed their Temple “within a generation”. This is God's eternal judgment on the choice not to accept His Word, on those who prefer to “flirt” with the Devil rather than accepting the Cross: “eternal fire”, “gnashing of teeth”, the “abomination of desolation”¹⁵. There is no shortcut to Paradise, only a “narrow gate”, not very crowded¹⁶.

But back to the original question: what does Jesus say about Israel and Palestine? Jesus reveals to us that between Heaven and Earth, between masters and dogs, between shepherd and sheep, between ox and donkey, between man and woman, between king and people, between right and left, between head and body, between staff and serpent, between stone and water, between bread and wine, between justice and mercy, between life and death, between God and Man, just as between Father and Son, there is a mysterious unity, mediated by their Love, who's the Holy Spirit. And all of this it's displayed there, on the Holy Cross, the center of the Cosmos, the axis mundi, the crossroad of everything. That's why we as Catholics love the Cross, that's why we venerate it and we place it at the center of our churches and at the center of our lives.

Mond Crucifixion, Raphael, 1502-1503, now in the National Gallery of London. This painting helps us to relate Heaven and Earth to the Cross in multiple dimensions. On the lower layer, Saint Jerome and Saint Maria Magdalene, the two penitent and eremitic saints: the male and the female. On the higher layer, those closest to the heart of Jesus: the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Apostle, the mother and the "adopted" son. On the left with respect to Cross, the first respective witnesses of the empty tomb: the apostle and the *apostola apostolorum*, the Magisterium and the Laity, the authority and the missionary faithful. On the right of Jesus: Mary and St. Jerome, the perpetual Virgin and the sinful converted, the golden Arc of the Covenant and those who joyfully welcome it (like Elizabeth, the Magi and King David)¹⁷, the Church and those who gather under her ”clock”^fig, the first to be saved and those waiting in hope for salvation, the Old Covenant and the Gentiles. On the top, the Sun, the origin of the Light of the world, and on the left with respect to the Cross, the Moon, which reflects the light, as we're called to do as Christians. At the center and crossroad of all the pairs: Jesus on the Cross, the “Alpha and the Omega”¹⁸ in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions.

This is Peace: Jesus. There is no other possible peace: revolution is not peace, but a cycle of vengeance, a cycle of little daily cruelties between husband and wife. The Catholic will always prefer Jesus to Barabbas¹⁹, will always prefer the king with the crown of thorns abandoned by his disciples to the rebel murderer acclaimed by the crowd, who fills the squares.

Revolution is always meaningless and destined for self-annihilation, like the Ouroboros^fig that turns and turns and eats its tail, the French and Russian revolutionaries who killed each other once in power, the woman who decides to behave like a man and then it brings a fascist woman to power, the Jews in diaspora mistreated who now, with a state, mistreat in turn, because the “Holy Land is only theirs”, not for the dogs who “seek the crumbs”⁴, a woman who resents the despotic power of men but, as soon as she has power over her child, weak, defenseless, asking only to eat a little more each day to grow, feels free to dismember him, like the West Bank, because “the Womb is hers alone,” not the parasites'. Our prayer now is that the mistreated Palestinians with a future state and a lot of resentment do not decide to do another senseless round.

The luciferian rebellious spirit always loses, because blinded by the thirst for Power it really believes it can kill God on the Cross. But not only does He rise again, because “death cannot hold Him”, He is also crowned with eternal glory, because the Father always hears the prayers of the least and exalts them²⁰. The only way out for salvation is the Cross. The only elevator to Heaven is Jesus. No one could get there alone, not even the sapient Greeks, because at the center lies a beautiful mystery inaccessible to men: the Most Holy Trinity, where “community” is one and there is no contradiction. Out of Love, God revealed this to us and He let us “touch” it and “eat” it too²¹. His desire is to make it our own mystery too. We render eternal thanks to God for this.

In the month of October, let us welcome the invitation of the pope^link and pray the Holy Rosary every day for peace in the Holy Land, between Israel and Palestine.

This blog post is dedicated to my father, with his pointed questions and his admirable curiosity. It's also dedicated to St. Jerome, since it was completed on 30th September, and he ended up being an unexpected protagonist of it. May his passion for the Bible, Old and New Covenant, and his devotion to the Virgin Mary always inspire us.

John 3:14, 2 Corinthians 5:21
John 1:11
John 12:24, John 15:1
Matthew 15:26
Matthew 5:3-12, Matthew 20:16
Genesis 4:15
Saint Augustin, Contra Faustum, Book XII
Luke 6:29, Matthew 7:1, Matthew 26:52
The biographer of St. Boniface, the “Apostle of Germany“, is careful to recollect that the courageous saint did only a “superficial cut“ to the trunk of Thor's oak: it was then a favorable wind —the Spirit of God— that totally uprooted the tree, which fell to the ground.
A direct quote from my agnostic father, whom I consider a Protestantism sympathizer —and I believe he would be fine with that epithet.
Dignitas organization, with its uknown headquarter in Switzerland, claims to have done a favour by ending the lives-without-dignity of over 40,000 people. In a quotation featured for the month of September, pain is an embarassment, being dumb, incontinent or mentally ill is a reason enough to be “put down“.
Laudato Si' encyclical, Pope Francis
Genesis 2:5, 2:21. The first man, Adam, was brought to life from the dust, a Earthly symbol of death. The first woman, Eve, was brought to life presumebly in the dark of the night, while Adam was in deep sleep. Even since Genesis, life and death, Heaven and Earth are misteriously united, in “one flesh“.
Angel and demons meditation, Pope Francis
Matthew 24:34, 3:12, 8:12, 24:15
Matthew 7:13-14
Luke 1:39-45, Luke 2:22-39, Matthew 2:1-12, 2 Samuel 6:16-17
John 8:12, Matthew 5:14-16, Revelation 22:13
Mark 15:7, Luke 23:19. In some manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew, the rebel freed instead of Jesus is named 'Jesus Barabbas', perhaps reflecting the actual difficulty at times of deciding whom to set free.
Acts 2:24, Hebrews 2:9, 4:14-16
John 20:27, Matthew 26:26