Have I become so used to looking at Jesus on the Cross that I am rather numb to the meaning of it all?
Have I gotten "used to" the cross? The Little Black Book on John's Gospel suggests that these last days of Lent are a good time to get "unused to" it.
Actually, I had a deep experience yesterday afternoon with my faculty faith-sharing group. We meet for an hour every Monday afternoon in my office and usually read and pray over the Gospel for the next Sunday's Liturgy. One is a priest and we jokingly say we are helping him prepare the homily for Sunday. Yesterday I thought we would not want to read the entire Passion according to Matthew (the Palm Sunday Gospel) as it is quite long. I saw that others wished to read it anyway and so I suggested reading it dramatically by different voices speaking: narrator, Jesus, others, and the crowd. Two of us had the same Holy Week booklet from Living With Christ; we shared and with our heads close together read the entire story of the Passion! I felt that the words were leaping from the page into my heart. I think the others felt it was a special time and we all said afterward how much it meant to read it together.

Today's Gospel has Jesus saying that He is never alone because He always does what pleases His Father. I want to choose always what pleases Jesus. I trust that Jesus gives the grace for this as it has been a desire for many years - another time when the words of Scripture jumped off the page and into my heart.
May we look on the Crucifix with new eyes today and see the pierced Heart of Christ open for all of us.