Exaltation of the Holy Cross Reflection

"Men called up to Jesus hanging on the Cross that if He came down t hey would put their faith in Him.   Men still do that today to His Mystical Body, the Church.  They call out that if the Church would change her teachings on certain faith and moral principles, they would find the Church more believable.  They forget our Savior is a Crucified Savior and that unless we take up our cross daily, as He said, we are not worthy of Him.  They have lost faith who would take the Cross out of Christianity.  Christ without His Cross is not the true Christ but an anti-christ.  Religion without the Cross is a godless religion of worshipping self."

- Father Robert J.  Fox

Exaltation of the Cross

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PRAYER FOR THE GRACE OF THE PASSION

O Lord,

for the redemption of the world,

You willed to be born among human beings,

subjected to the rite of circumcision,

rejected by the people,

betrayed by Judas with a kiss,

bound with cords,

led like an innocent lamb to the slaughter,

shamelessly exposed to the gaze of Annas

as well as Caiaphas, Pilate, and Herod,

accused by false witnesses,

tormented by scourges and insults,

spat upon and crowned with thorns,

struck with blows of hand and reed,

blindfolded and stripped of your garments,

affixed to the wood and lifted  high on the Cross,

numbered among thieves,

given gall and vinegar to drink,

and pierced by a lance.

Lord,

by these most holy sufferings,

which we, Your unworthy servants,

devoutly call to mind,

and by Your holy Cross and death

deliver us from the pains of hell,

and be pleased to take us

where You took the penitent thief

who was crucified with You.

You live and reign 

with the Father and the Holy Spirit, 

one God, forever.

Source:  New Saint Joseph People's Prayer Book

“LIFT HIGH THE CROSS”

by William Adolph Bouguereau

This article should have been posted on September 14th. Please accept my apologies.

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
September 14


Brother John M. Samaha, S.M.


Already in the time of the apostles the cross on which Christ died had become the symbol of his redemptive death and a symbol for himself and for Christianity.

In 335 A.D. on September 13 the Church of the Martyrdom and Resurrection was dedicated in Jerusalem. The next day, in a solemn ceremony, the faithful were shown the cross that the Empress Helen had discovered on September 14, 320. This ceremony was repeated each successive year on September 14 in that church, which possessed a large relic of the cross. The reverent elevation of the relic of the true cross gave this day its name, “exaltation of the cross.” From this gesture we have our popular contemporary hymn, “Lift high the cross.” Later this feast was combined with the memorial of the rescue of the stolen cross from the Persians by the Emperor Heraclius in 628.

The striking prayers of the Divine Liturgy for this day testify to the grace of our salvation as expressed in Christ’s promise, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself” John 12:32).

The tone of the feast of the “Exaltation of the Cross,” which more properly is now called the “Triumph of the Cross,” is quite different from the somber and sorrowful liturgy of Good Friday. September 14 has a definitely joyous character. It recalls our happiness about our salvation.
Blessed Pope John XXIII had a favorite crucifix on his bedroom wall. He prayed in front of it before retiring, upon arising, and whenever cares awakened him during the night. “A cross,” he said, “is the primary symbol of God’s love for us.”

Because the cross has become so commonplace, there is danger that this symbol of Christian salvation may lose much of its significance. The cross is visible in so many places and we see it so often: in church, in our room, in public displays, even on some hilltops. Frequently we make the “sign of the cross” over ourselves when we pray and at other times. Even in the secular realm the word “cross” is widely used not only as a symbol of honor or service as in “Red Cross” and “Distinguished Service Cross,” but even in more prosaic terms such as “criss-cross,” “crossword,” and other common expressions. How do we overcome the tendency to lose or dilute the importance of the word and the symbol?

We need to devise solutions and reminders to overcome that kind of passivity. One approach is to think of and to speak of the striking symbolism of the two beams that make up the cross. The upright (vertical) beam with its orientation pointing both above and below will remind us that the Son of God came down from heaven for us and for our salvation. This beam is a symbol of God’s love for humankind, which manifests itself especially in the Incarnation and in Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross. The upright beam will also remind us of the necessity of lifting up the human spirit to God. When people forget this upward climb to God, this transcendence, they quickly lose awareness of the fundamental dimension of their own creaturely status and dependence on the Creator. Then the illusion of human autonomy quickly encroaches resulting in error and confusion.
The horizontal (cross) beam points both left and right indicating our fellow human beings all round us. That reminds us that together with the love of God, the love of neighbor is essential to the Christian commandment of love. True holiness cannot overlook one’s neighbor. Christ himself demonstrated symbolically with his arms extended on the cross what he had earlier proclaimed publicly: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself” (John 12:32). Let us stretch our arms wide as Jesus has done, so that we will embrace the whole world. We cannot love God while denying our fellow human beings practical love in concrete situations. Christ refers every good deed, and every good deed left undone, to himself: “...you did it (did not do it) to me” (Matthew 25:40-45).

Recalling the vertical and horizontal beams of the cross in this way is a lively reminder of the Christian way of life. To give the symbol of the cross such a prominence in our lives is the most significant “exaltation” and “triumph” of the cross. May the feast and each time we bless ourselves remind us of this.
“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed us.”

Exaltation of the Cross

St. Helena and the True Cross

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The following is from today's Magnificat's daily reading:

"...We exalt Christ's cross whenever we freely take it up, filled with the certainty that the ultimate meaning and fulfillment which we crave in life comes to us through this unending event. 'With the cross we are freed from the restraint of the enemy and we clutch on to the strength of salvation.' - Saint Theodorus the Estudite...'we cannot produce or give any other fruit but the fruit we have taken from the tree of life.' - St. Catherine of Siena. 'No wonder that the sign of the cross makes kings of all those reborn in Christ' - St. Leo the Great."

The Beloved Crosses

"The saints...all loved the Cross and found in it their strength and their consolation.

But...is it necessary...always to have something to suffer?...Now sickness or poverty, or again scandal or calumny, or possibly loss of money or an infirmity?

Have you been calumniated, my friends? Have you been loaded with insults? Have you been wronged? So much the better! That is a good sign; do not worry; you are on the road that leads to Heaven. Do you know when you ought to be really upset? I do not know if you understand it, but it should be precisely for the opposite reason--when you have nothing to endure, when everyone esteems and respects you. Then you should feel envious of those who have the happiness of passing their lives in suffering, or contempt, or poverty. Are you forgetting, then, that at your Baptism you accepted the cross, which you must never abandon until death, and that it is the key that you will use to open the door of Heaven? Are you forgetting the words of our savior? 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.' Not for a day, not for a week, not for a year, but all our lives. The saints had a great fear of passing any time without suffering, for they looked upon it as time lost. According to St. Teresa, man is only in this world to suffer, and when he ceases to suffer, he should cease to live. St. John of the Cross asks God, with tears, to give him the grace to suffer more as a reward of all his labors.

What should we conclude...from all that? Just this: Let us make a resolution to have a great respect for all the crosses, which are blessed, and which represent to us in a small way all that our God Suffered for us. Let us recall that from the Cross flow all the graces that are bestowed upon us and that as a consequence, a cross which is blessed is a source of blessings, that we should often make the Sign of the Cross on ourselves and always with great respect, and , finally, that our houses should never remain without this symbol of salvation.

Fill your children...with the greatest respect for the Cross, and always have a blessed cross on yourselves; it will protect you against the Devil, from the vengeance of Heaven, and from all danger...

Source: The Sermons of the Curé of Ars.