That's my prayer with this Trituum at the end of this Lent leading into Easter. Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascentra Presents. You know, all throughout Lent and all during Holy Week, in fact, during the life of Catholics, we often put in front of ourselves the crucifix. Right. So it's a cross, of course, but it is the cross with the corpus, right, with the body of Jesus on it.

And of course, we don't do that because we don't believe that he's, we're not putting Jesus back on the cross. Like we know that he's, he's conquered death, he's conquered the grave, he's risen from the dead, he's ascended to heaven. We know that. But we also, we place in front of ourselves the image of Christ and him crucified for a number of reasons.

Not to say he's not, not to say he's still on the cross, he's not.

But to remind us of his love for us, to remind us of what he's done for us.

I mean, that's so remarkable.

But also to remind us of his identity and to, and for us to ask the question, do I want to be associated

with that? I love crucifixes. In fact, John Paul II's crucifix that he would have on his

Crozier, like the staff he had as a pope. He's just like so cool. Here I am saying

that's a really cool crucifix. But let's be honest, it's this image of Jesus just hanging. You can see like gravity pulling him down to the ground as he's just hanging from his wrists, hanging from his hands from the nails. And there's a self-emptying there that just so, it's powerful. I mean, even though it's death, it's powerful.

In a lot of countries or cultures, they have crucifixes that are... and there's a self-emptying there that's just so it's powerful. I mean, even though it's death,

it's powerful. In a lot of countries or cultures, they have crucifixes that are, they have wounds, a lot of wounds on them, like the scourge marks. My mom in particular, she, at one point, she, for a little chapel space we have, when I come home, I used to be able, I still do say mass, but my mom wanted a crucifix there. She wanted it to have the wounds of Jesus, not just his hands and his side and his feet. She wanted them to be

like the scourge marks. And that is powerful too, because it's that image of, wow, here's what the

Lord has undergone for us. This is what he's experienced for us. But recently I had an

opportunity to help out with a pilgrimage of our students and some friends of Newman up here in

Duluth to Poland. And beautiful churches, incredible, just remarkable country and a place where

saints have lived and saints have died and one of those saints

is John Paul II. I mentioned before in a place called Krakov, Krakow, let's be honest, Krakow. In the city

of Krakow, there is the John Paul II shrine, I think it is. And it's right across like a kind of a road

from the Divine Mercy Shrine,

which is also remarkable. But going into the John Paul II shrine or John Paul II Center,

I'm not sure what it's called. You walk in and beautiful, take a left and there's the white cassock that John Paul II got shot in. And you can, and you could, there's so blood on it.

And I remember I just, I knelt down and just prayed in front of this, just asking for his intercession. You can see the bullet holes in his cassock that he was wearing as he was shot twice in the stomach. But then you go a little further. And there's another little side chapel. and I'd been here before. I'd been here two years ago.

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