Every deed of Christ is a cause of glorying to the Catholic Church, but her greatest of all glorying is in the Cross; and knowing this, Paul says, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of Christ" (Galatians 6:14). For wondrous indeed it was, that one who was blind from his birth should receive sight in Siloam; but what is this compared with the blind of the whole world? A great thing it was, and passing nature, for Lazarus to rise again on the fourth day; but the grace extended to him alone, and what was it compared with the dead in sins throughout the world? Marvellous it was, that five loaves should pour forth food for the five thousand; but what is that to those who are famishing in ignorance through all the world? It was marvellous that she should have been loosed who had been bound by Satan eighteen years: yet what is this to all of us, who were fast bound in the chains of our sins? But the glory of the Cross led those who were blind through ignorance into light, loosed all who were held fast by sin, and ransomed the whole world of mankind.

And wonder not that the whole world was ransomed; for it was no mere man, but the only-begotten Son of God, Who died on its behalf. Moreover one man's sin, even Adam's, had power to bring death to the world; but "if by the trespass of the one, death reigned" over the world, how shall not life much rather reign "by the righteousness of the One" (Romans 5:17-18)? And if because of the tree of food they were then cast out of paradise, shall not believers now more easily enter into paradise because of the Tree of Jesus? If the first man formed out of the earth brought in universal death, shall not He who formed him out of the earth bring in eternal life, being Himself the Life? If Phinees, when he waxed zealous and slew the evil-doer, staved the wrath of God, shall not Jesus, who slew not another, but "gave up Himself for a ransom" (1 Timothy 2:6), put away the wrath which is against mankind?

Let us then not be ashamed of the Cross of our Saviour but rather glory in it. "For the word of the Cross is unto Jews a stumbling-block, and unto Gentiles foolishness, but to us salvation: and to them that are perishing it is foolishness, but unto us which are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:23-24). For it was not a mere man who died for us, as I said before, but the Son of God, God made man.

- St. Cyril Of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 13.