Links: Pope Francis on the cross; corporations respond to Georgia voting law

Pope Francis' homily at the chrism Mass on Holy Thursday was one of his finest. After commenting that "the cross is nonnegotiable," the pope said:

There is an aspect of the cross that is an integral part of our human condition, our limits and our frailty. Yet it is also true that something happens on the Cross that does not have to do with our human weakness but is the bite of the serpent, who, seeing the crucified Lord defenseless, bites him in an attempt to poison and undo all his work. A bite that tries to scandalize — and this is an era of scandals — a bite that seeks to disable and render futile and meaningless all service and loving sacrifice for others. It is the venom of the evil one who keeps insisting: Save yourself.

How often do we allow the serpent's bite to cause us to abandon the work, to delude ourselves into thinking we can save ourselves? Be sure to read until the very end when a woman religious gave the future pope a lesson he still remembers vividly.

In The New York Times, good news from the National Labor Relations Board, which determined that two women fired by Amazon were fired illegally. The board ruled that they were terminated because of their efforts to organize a union, which is against the law. Let's hope corporate boardrooms are paying attention. Nothing would do more to revitalize our nation's political health than a resurgence of the labor movement.

Also in The New York Times, a look at how major corporations like Delta and Coca-Cola, both based in Atlanta, are navigating the political headwinds caused by that state's effort to restrict voting rights. There is a bit of hypocrisy on the left, which welcomes their interference now after complaining for years about their political influence. Still, the fact that these corporations are opposing the new law speaks to the law's radical and anti-American nature: Expanding the franchise, not restricting it, used to be a nonpartisan goal. Think of the League of Women Voters registering people to vote at the mall on weekends. Buying into Donald Trump's big lie about election fraud and then enacting laws like Georgia's should worry all citizens, even our corporate citizens. (But I still don't trust them!)