... To others it stands for shade and refreshment, because believers are
protected from the heat and rigor of persecution, and there refreshed.”
Pope Leo I, Letter to the Monks of Palestine 124, 3 (453 AD)
“What hope, then, do they, who deny the truth of the human substance in
the body of our Savior, leave for themselves in the efficacy of this
sacrament? Let them tell by what sacrifice they have been reconciled; let
them tell by what blood they have been redeemed. Who is He that gave
Himself up on our behalf, as an oblation and victim to God in an odor of
sweetness? And what sacrifice was there ever that was more sacred than
that which the true High Priest placed upon the altar of the cross by the
immolation of His own flesh?”
Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566)
Pt. I, Ch. V: Many other reasons which the Fathers have discussed in
detail might be adduced to show that it was fit that our Redeemer should
suffer death on the cross rather than in any other way. But, as the pastor
will show, it is enough for the faithful to believe that this kind of death was
chosen by the Savior because it appeared better adapted and more
appropriate to the redemption of the human race; for there certainly could
be none more ignominious and humiliating. Not only among the Gentiles
was the punishment of the cross held accursed and full of shame and
infamy, but even in the Law of Moses the man is called accursed that
hangeth on a tree.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992)
No. 601:
The Scriptures had foretold this divine plan of salvation
through the putting to death of “the righteous one, my Servant” as a
mystery of universal redemption, that is, as the ransom that would free men
from the slavery of sin. Citing a confession of faith that he himself had
“received,” St. Paul professes that “Christ died for our sins in accordance
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