When Jennifer asked her grandmother, “Is it (the cross) still there?” I didn’t hear her reply to the four-year-old girl. But since she is a Christian, active in her parish and informed about the Christian faith, I believe that she gave a positive answer, “Yes, Jennifer, the cross is still there” or something like that. She could have said, “You can’t see it, but it is still there and it will always be there. You have been marked by the cross forever.” She would be right on both counts, of course.

For one thing, the cross of Christ -- the sign of God’s new covenant with us in Jesus Christ -- is invisible. It cannot be seen with the naked eye; it was traced on our foreheads with a “bare” finger, or possibly with water or oil. It could not be seen at all, or not for very long, at best. The “…