The cross is the wedding bed where the bridegroom, Christ, consumates his union with his bride, the Church who springs from his side as Eve did from Adam’s. The water and blood that poured from his wound—as water and blood pour forth from the womb at birth—signify the new birth of the Church, which is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, she is the body and he is the head and their union is consummated for wach believer in the eucharistic feast as the christian eats the bread which is the Real Presence of Christ, His body, blood, soul and divinity. (also at the foot of the cross Christ gives the queen, his mother to the church in the person of John)
This sign, the water and blood poured out, the Chuch preserves in the sacrament of baptism when the christian dies with christ, is buried with christ and rises to new life in Christ. Also the mingling of the wine and water in the cup remembers this moment.
Christ’s naked flesh as he hangs on the cross (no loincloths in the biblical account) reveals the sign of the old covenant which is fulfilled in the new: circumcision. An intimate sign of God’s faithfulness to man and man’s faithfulness to God, usually only seen by the parents and later by a man’s bride, revealed here to all men for Christ weds all men in his mystical union with the universal Church. Here at last is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, Adam exclaims. No less the new Adam who gives his body to create his bride, who lays down his life as the first Adam failed to do, to defend her, to nourish her, to guarantee her eternal life.
