Homily: Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Note: Today, September 14, is a special feast in the liturgical calendar of the Church. We celebrate both the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem (the first of which was built during the reign of the Emperor Constantine in the 4th Century) and the discovery of the Holy Cross by Constantine's mother, St. Helena, in 320 A.D.

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Readings: Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 78; Phil 2:6-11; John 3:13-17

St. Helena

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is an ancient feast, going back to the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem in 335 A.D. The church encloses both Golgotha and Jesus’ tomb, and on this site St. Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, found the true Cross.

Among the many legends surrounding this event is one that says Helena found three crosses. Since she couldn’t identify the real one, each cross was placed on a man suffering from a severe handicap. The true Cross was the one that healed.

If there are doubts about the actual Cross, there is less doubt about the site. The Church was completely destroyed on several occasions; first by the Persians in 614 AD. When Jerusalem was recaptured, the Cross was brought back from Persia in triumph and enthroned in the partially rebuilt Church.

Emperor Heraclius intended to carry the cross during the dedication ceremony; but he couldn’t budge it, and so Bishop Zachary told him to remove his royal garments. Heraclius changed clothes, put on penitential garb, and carried the Cross easily.

The church was again destroyed in 1009 by the Egyptian Caliphate, along with every other church in the Holy Land, except the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. But in the 12th century the church was rebuilt once again, this time by Crusaders.
As you might imagine, legends about the true Cross abound. It really matters little whether or not they’re true. The point is, they still offer us some truths in which we can take comfort and apply in our lives. Just like St. Helena’s handicapped man, we too can experience the healing power of the Cross. And it’s been healing throughout time, even when it wasn’t explicitly recognized.

Listen again to these words of our 1st reading from Numbers: “with their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and Moses.” I don’t know about you, but I can relate to this.  The life of faith often seems like a long trip in the desert, and our faith can suffer.

Moses and the bronze serpent

Because of their sin, their faithlessness, God’s people were afflicted by venomous snakes. So God instructed Moses: "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live."

The bronze serpent, lifted up, points to the Cross of Christ, which defeats sin and death and obtains everlasting life for those who believe.

From Jesus "being lifted up on the Cross" and his Resurrection, we are reborn “in the Spirit" as adopted sons and daughters of the Father. God not only redeems us, but fills us with divine life that we might share in his glory.

Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit so we can witness to Him, spread and defend the gospel by word and action, and never be ashamed of Christ's Cross. This same Holy Spirit gives us his seven-fold gifts of wisdom and understanding, right judgment, and courage, knowledge and reverence for God and his ways, and a holy fear in God's presence that we may live God's way of life.

Do we pray for the gifts of the Spirit? Do we thirst for new life in the Spirit? We should. We must.

Another truth that comes out of those early legends: Like the emperor, in humility we can always glory in the Cross. A friend, a Christian but not a Catholic, once told me that she didn’t mind the Cross, but she found a crucifix to be offensive. You see, for many, and for far too many Christians, Catholics included, Christ crucified is an embarrassment.

Our second reading, from Philippians, not only affirms our faith in Jesus as fully divine and fully human, but more than that, it affirms the Cross. It focuses on the seemingly absurd notion that the Creator of the universe allowed Himself to be murdered by His creatures. Yes, the Cross is a scandal to so many. They want a comfortable faith, like a warm blanket on a cold night, when of course, true Christian faith is really the Cross, the Cross with our God hanging on it.

Yes, the Cross is about a God who loves us so much He willingly suffered a painful, ignominious death. It’s about suffering, something the world tells us to avoid. It’s about redemption, something few people believe they really need. And it’s about grace, something that few of us understand.

Too often grace is seen as God’s medicine, as His analgesic for life’s difficult times. But before God’s grace can heal, it often cuts with the sword Christ said He came to bring. Grace follows the crosses of our lives: illness, depression, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, a crisis of faith, tragedy or sorrow in our children’s lives, personal rejection. It’s then, when we suffer the most, when we carry our cross, that God’s grace is most abundant – if only we ask for it.

Pope John Paul II

In John’s Gospel we hear Jesus asking Nicodemus, a Jew, to understand the story of Moses lifting up the serpent in a new way, as a foreshadowing of the Cross of our redemption. And Jesus reassures Nicodemus and us with those wonderful words: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish, but might have eternal life.”

Jesus turned the Cross, an instrument of cruelty and shame, into a symbol of God’s love and glory. As He hung on that Cross, He transformed the world. He transformed history.

Our only response to this wonderful gift is prayer, obedience, and our feeble attempts to respond to His love by loving one another in His name.We are called to focus our gaze on Jesus, on Christ crucified, and on the glory of His Resurrection. Let us never be dulled to the power and promise of the Cross, and willingly share its sign with the world: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.