At this period of the year, as the earth swings in its orbit from aphelion to perihelion and brings the tree to bud and leaf again, Holy Church, by some ancient sortilege of Epacts and Indictions, Concurrences and Golden Numbers, fixes in that orbit a point that shall be Easter Day. Thereby she also fixes the days that immediately precede Easter. So nature and supernature, the universe and the universal Church, confront us year by year on Good Friday with that leafless and essential tree, the Cross.

Let us, today, go back to the first Good Friday, and take our stand where the Cross is to be erected. We are just outside the gates of Jerusalem, on the refuse-dump, the place of execution where the city eliminates its most hateful objects, the men whom it can no longer stomach within it. Look down from the little hill upon the great city.