Daily Reflection Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

One of my favorite hymns, “Lift high the Cross,” gives witness to the centrality of the Cross as something we venerate with particular devotion because it symbolizes God’s love for us expressed by the self-sacrificing death of Jesus, God’s Incarnate Son.

 The reason we celebrate this feast today is that on the same date, way back in the year 326, Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine showed what she believed to be the True Cross to the people of Jerusalem so they could venerate it.

  John’s Gospel compares Jesus being lifted up to the incident in today’s First Reading where God tells Moses to put an image of a serpent on a pole so that all who look upon it will be healed. Pope Francis, preaching on this a couple of years ago, pointed out that, “God does not destroy the serpents, but rather offers an “antidote”: by means of the bronze serpent fashioned by Moses, God transmits his healing strength, his mercy…”

  In our Gospel, Jesus in a much more radical way is also lifted up “so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.” Jesus, who gave his life on the Cross as a sign of the Father’s love for each and every one of us, will tell his disciples at the Last Supper that the greatest love is giving your life for your friends. 

         Jesus is not only lifted up on the Cross physically but also cosmically. Jesus while on the Cross dies, passes to new life in the Resurrection, returns in glory to the Father at the Ascension, but also breathes forth the Spirit upon us at Pentecost. Jesus is totally exalted on the Cross.



         Christ is for us the perfect antidote for everything that tries to defeat us. Let us always give thanks to God and try in everything we say and do to “Lift high the Cross…”