The Way of the Cross (Exaltation of the Holy Cross)

I was blessed to have had the opportunity to do a pilgrimage to the Holy Land last year with some friends.  The last day of the pilgrimage brought us to the site where our Lord was crucified and buried. The whole site is enclosed by a magnificent Church known now as the Church of the Sepulcher. I had a good exchange with our guide who informed me that the church was built through the wishes of St. Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine.  St. Helena had it built out of her joy because of the discovery of the Holy Cross on which Jesus was crucified.  For more information, I consulted Mr. Google and I was rewarded with the story surrounding the finding of the true cross in the early 300s.  This tradition is directly relevant to our celebration today, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

Tradition has it, as told by St. John Chrysostom, that St. Helena had a burning pious desire to find the real cross of Christ.  So she did a pilgrimage to Palestine. In Jerusalem, she commissioned an excavation on the hill of Calvary.  The site of Jesus’ sepulcher had been buried by the heathens out of an aversion to Christianity. They had heaped upon his sepulcher a great quantity of rubbish and stones.  Hence, the excavation had to go deep.  The holy sepulcher was eventually discovered.  Nearby were three crosses, the nails, and the title which had been affixed to Jesus’ cross.

Which was the cross of Jesus? St. Macarius, then the bishop of Jerusalem, had an inspired idea. To determine which was the true cross of Jesus, he had all three crosses touched an ailing and dying woman as he prayed for God to reveal which cross was the one that saved the world. The two crosses had no effect on the woman.  The third, however, brought complete healing!  The cross of our Lord was finally found!  The good news of the discovery spread like wild fire; and, once again, Christians gathered to venerate it as had been done before.  Out of joy, St. Helena then commissioned a church to be built over the site.  On September 13, 335, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was consecrated. And the following day, September 14, was designated to be the celebration of the feast of the finding and exaltation of the Cross.  The basilica of the Holy Sepulcher had been destroyed and rebuilt over and over again.  Until today it is regarded by Christians as the holiest site on earth. 

Our liturgy has kept until today the celebration of the ancient feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.  This gives us the opportunity to continue to meditate on the meaning of the cross of Jesus in our Christian living. Allow me to reflect on two important points: The cross as the symbol of a love that saves and the cross as constant reminder of a way of life conformed to that of Jesus.

Symbol of a Love that Saves.  A thousand and hundreds of years before Jesus embraced his cross, already God had manifested his saving love for his people through Moses.  The first reading (Nm 21:4b-9) recounts the event of Israel’s liberation from Egypt. The difficult journey in the desert was to purify the Israelites’ self-centered inclinations. In this reading we see them grumbling and rebelling against God and Moses because of the inconveniences they had to undergo in the desert. They had easily forgotten God’s promises. The result of this sin was a plague of serpents that poisoned them to death. This consequence brought them back to their senses and humbled them so as to plead to be saved from the serpents.  Moses prayed; and as God instructed him, he made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole.  Anyone bitten recovered as he looked at the bronze serpent.

This event prefigured the ultimate salvation of all people from the poison of sin through Christ.  As today’s gospel (Jn 3:13-17) has it: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (v. 14-15).  The Son of Man being lifted up points to the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross. And this one sacrifice on the cross is a revelation of the depth, the width and the height of God’s love for his people. The cross of Jesus reminds us of God's act of love in Christ's sacrifice at Calvary, where he gave his life for us as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

When we look at the cross, we see the symbol of a love that saves. As we contemplate the cross, let us allow these words of the gospel to reverberate in our hearts: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him may not perish, but may have everlasting life” (v. 16).

Reminder of a Way of Life.  The cross is indeed a very significant symbol of Christianity. But it must not be reduced into ornaments that we place in our Churches, chapels, oratories, and rooms. The cross is not just a Christian accessory.  It is a Christian way of life.

In the second reading (Phil 2:6-10), St. Paul explains how Jesus emptied himself by becoming like us, human.  Jesus’ humility and obedience finds its ultimate expression in his acceptance of his death on the cross.  Somewhere else in the gospels, the Lord Jesus reminds his disciples thus:  "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me” (Mt 16:24).

Just as our Lord emptied himself, we have to take up our own crosses by our acts of self-denial. Just as our Lord humbled himself, we have to take up our own crosses by learning the virtue of humility. Just as our Lord manifested his obedience to the Father even to death on the cross, we are asked to take up our crosses by making the will of God our priority.

Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me (Mt 10:38). There is no Christianity without the cross then. St. Helena did everything in order to find the cross of Christ.  Our own search does not require digging into rubble and stones anymore. Maybe our invitation is really to have the courage to carry our crosses every day. It is to live out the meaning of the cross in our lives—humility, obedience to God, and self-sacrificing love. This is a way of life conformed to that of Jesus. This is the way of the cross.