The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

This month the Church focuses our attention on the cross of Christ. The Exaltation of the Cross, celebrated on Sept 14, honours Christ’s Cross, an instrument made sacred by the Lord’s offering of Himself upon it for our salvation.

The Church tells us that Christ’s sacrifice is “the source of eternal salvation” and teaches that “his most holy Passion on the wood of the cross merited justification for us.” The Cross represents the truth that Jesus sacrificed Himself for the sins of the world. Jesus willingly died on the Cross to save us from our sins.

By carrying our own crosses, we are united with Jesus and can share in His victory. The Cross tells us that no matter how hard our struggles are, there is always hope in Christ. The Cross of Christ must permeate each one of us, transforming us and making us new. First and foremost, this happens when we open ourselves to the infinite mercy of God flowing from that selfless Sacrifice. It also occurs when we allow every one of our sufferings, the injustices we endure, the crosses, hardships, and most undesirable aspects of our lives to share in the redemptive power of Christ. We do this when we embrace Jesus’ commands to share in His sufferings, unite them with His own, and allow Him to bear an abundance of good fruit through us. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”

Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac encouraged the contemplation of the cross as a symbol of God’s love and saw service to the poor as identifying with the cross in that sense. The symbol of the cross, so central to the good news, speaks to our age, as to every age, but with different focus points. It says forcefully to us at least the following, The Crucified Jesus, in his suffering love, stands at the center of our faith, raised up by the Father, fully alive.

In our Vincentian context, frequent meditation on the cross, as the symbol of God's love for us and of our love for God, has great importance. It discloses the depths of his love. It proclaims that the power of God will prevail over what sinful men and women conspire to do. It reveals that true wisdom lies not with the forces of evil, but in suffering love.

The cross today, in the following of Christ, may take the following forms especially:

labouring daily, and perseveringly, in the service of the poor; sharing the helplessness and pain of the marginalized; standing with the abandoned and suffering in solidarity with them for justice’s sake. Other forms include witnessing to gospel values even when it is not popular; accepting events that displease us, but that we can do nothing about; sharing some of the privations of the poor; bearing sickness, our own and that of others. It means coming to grips with aging; enduring the death of friends and even experiencing one's own dying.

The challenge is to recognize the disfigured, crucified Lord in those in need and, like Saint Vincent and Saint Louise, to raise the consciousness of others to their plight. Contemplation of the crucified Lord cannot remain merely a pious exercise; nor can it be simply meditation on a past event. The Lord lives on in his members. He is crucified in individual persons and in suffering peoples. The call is to see him and serve him there.

One of the great gifts of the two founders was the ability to recognize Christ in the face of the suffering and to mobilize the energies of others in their service. To aid the most abandoned of their time, they gathered together rich and poor, women and men, clergy and laity. They said that the crucified peoples bring salvation to us, as we labor to take them down from the cross.

We are evangelized by the cross, and we evangelize by the cross. Our lives can be transformed by the suffering love of Jesus's followers, who fill up his sufferings in their bodies: the sick, who bear illness with courage; the grieving, who hope against hope; the dying, who clearly trust in the resurrection.

Let us follow the example of St Vincent and follow the words of St John Vianney,
You must accept your cross. If you bear it courageously, it will carry you to heaven.

Deacon John Girolami
Spiritual Advisor
SSVP Ontario Regional Council