PAX CHRISTI +
To be “Full of Grace,” the title by which the Archangel Gabriel addressed the Blessed Virgin, is to be sinless. Can’t be tainted by sin and be full of grace. Just as Adam and the Woman were created sinless, so Jesus, the “Second Adam,” and Mary, the “New Eve,” were created sinless.

Mary was saved from the Sin of Adam by pre-venient grace, that is, “pre-coming” grace from the Second Person of the Holy Trinity before His Incarnation. Mary, as the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, had to be sinless to share spousal unity with divinity, the same spousal unity with divinity which we will receive when Christ returns for His spotless Bride, the Church.

Iconoclasts, anti-image fanatics, troubled even Luther in his day, smashing images of Christ and the saints in Catholic churches. This controverts the tradition of life-like imagery which the Lord demanded for His temple built by Solomon, which included His demand for twelve life-sized bronze bulls. Nobody interpreted these as “graven images” but were artworks that glorified God.

Further, the empty cross is, for non-Catholics, a symbol created to disputie their interpretation of Christ’s “once and for all” sacrifice as meaning it’s over and done. “Once and for all” means then and always, not some one-shot deal.

Christ said, “Do this in memory of Me.” This parallels the perpetual ordinance of the Passover, with people today witnessing the lifesaving consecration effected by the priestly heir to the Apostles as ALTER CHRISTUS, “another Christ,” and as completed on the Cross.

The sacrifice of Christ’s exists in time and eternity, and representations of the Corpus on the Cross say this visually. The New Testament prophesies about those who will deny the Crucifixion, which is something Islam teaches. The Corpus on the cross witnesses of Christ’s salvific Crucifixion.