Dear friends in Christ Jesus,
Today our Holy Mother Church celebrates the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The purpose of this feast is to focus our hearts and minds on the Cross of Christ. This feast celebrates the recovery of the Cross of Christ by Saint Helena, the mother of the emperor Constantine, and then later on, the new recovery of this Cross of Christ from non-Christians, who had taken it. The feast, in truth, wants us to focus on the mystery of the Cross and not so much on this history of recovering it. The recoveries are only the occasions to meditate on why we have any veneration for the Cross.
The first reading, from the Book of Numbers, speaks about an odd experience of our ancestors in the faith. In the desert, they come across poisonous snakes, serpents. Those who are bitten by the serpents die. So, the people complain to Moses, understandably, and he speaks with God, who gives the remedy of a bronze serpent mounted on a pole. When the people are bitten by serpents, then they look at this bronze serpent on the pole and they are healed. This is an account written long before the time of Christ. But we can see the imagery easily and how it can be reflected in Christ Himself. When we are bitten by a serpent or sin—we need healing. And we are invited to look at Christ on the Cross through the sacrament of Confession and from that look, we can be healed. We should remember, of course, that our ancestors knew that they would die if they did not look at this bronze serpent. Today we are hardly convinced that we shall die from sin!! So much of modern culture encourages sin of every type but most of all an indifference to spiritual values. There seems to be very little recognition that anything that we could do might truly harm us spiritually. This is said, not to make sin worse, but simply to recognise that most people today seem not to be concerned about sin at all.
The second reading, from the Letter to the Philippians, invites us to reflect on the mystery of God’s love for us. It is God who recognises that we are caught up in this life in a way that does not lead us forward in the spirit. Our blindness is so great that God recognises that He must do something to save us and so He sends His Son. Actually, lots of people today, even Christians, don’t believe that Jesus is God. For many people, Jesus is just another spiritual teacher. From one point of view, Jesus is a spiritual teacher. But He is so much more than that. Once we start reading the Holy Scriptures and especially as we read the Gospels, we can understand that Jesus does indeed claim to be God and to be one with the Father. The letter to the Philippians, however, is written with the full belief that Jesus is God. When one believes that Jesus is truly God, His taking on a human form becomes an incredible event in human history.
The Gospel is clearly chosen because of the reference to the serpents that we heard about in the first reading. But more important to us is the last part of the Gospel: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” Now, we are at the heart of the meaning of the Cross of Christ. We do not celebrate this feast in some sad way or because we want to suffer or because we feel sorry for Christ. We celebrate this feast because we have been saved through Jesus Christ and His death on the Cross. This feast reminds us that we are the people who can rejoice in the goodness and compassion of God. Moreover, when we fail in our lives, we can return to our Merciful Father through the Holy Sacraments.
IMAGE: Exaltation of the True Cross (1603–1605) by Adam Elsheimer - Public Domain