The cross is Jesus going into the very lair of death. He goes to meet head-on that which frightens us the most. And what does He do? He battles it. He engages it. And finally he conquers it.

Hans Urs von Balthasar maintained that the best evangelistic strategy is to capture people with the beautiful, then enchant them with the good, and then lead them to the true.

Bob Dylan said, "The executioner's face is always well-hidden". That's the problem: The cross pulls that hood off.

The Bible constantly warns against a merely mercenary relationship with God - a friendship of convenience or self-interest. We should not love God simply because doing so will produce many consolations in our life. We must enter a true relationship, were we fall in love not with His benefits, but with Him.

Love without truth devolves into sentimentality. Truth without love becomes cold and calculated.

Beauty is the arrowhead of evangelization.

We need to mock false gods publicly.