Reflection From

Fr. John

September 14, 2025

This week we celebrate the Feast of the Exhortation of the Holy Cross. This feast dates back to the early Church, when St. Helen discovered the remnants of the Cross of Christ while on pilgrimage in Jerusalem.

After discovering the remains of three different crosses, St. Helen verified the discovery of the true Cross from the miraculous healing that occurred after touching it to a very ill woman. The site of the discovery of the true Cross, Mount Calvary, is contained within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Upon the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross was instituted in AD 335.

In our First Reading for this week, which comes from the Book of Numbers, we have a foreshadowing of the power of the Crucifixion of Christ. The book of Numbers describes the Israelites’ 40 year journey through the wilderness from Mount Sinai to the border of the promised land. This week, we read how God delivered the people from the plague of the poisonous saraph serpents through Moses raising up a bronze serpent on a pole. Anyone who looked at this bronze serpent and had been bitten would live. This bronze serpent was meant to show that it was through God’s grace and divine power that the people were healed of their wounds, both physical and spiritual.

The raising up of the bronze serpent took on much greater significance when Jesus, in the Gospel for this week, mentioned, “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.” (John 3:14-15) Jesus is responding to Nicodemus who is asking Him how someone can be reborn of water and the Spirit. In His reply to Nicodemus, Jesus explains how he will be raised up like the saraph serpent and anyone who looks upon him and believes will be healed. It is through the merits of Christ’s Suffering and Crucifixion that our sins are forgiven and our redemption is brought about.

During the time of Christ, crucifixion was the most severe and torturous punishment imaginable. The early Christians would never depict crucifixion in their artwork due to its severity. It was considered such a terrible punishment that no Roman citizen could ever be sentenced to crucifixion.

Yet, as St. Paul mentions in his letter to the Philippians this week, “Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself,...becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6-8) Christ Jesus, out of His love for us and His desire for us to be with Him forever in Heaven, entered into the depths of our human suffering. He submitted Himself to the most terrible of deaths, death on a cross. It is through the grace and love of Christ that the Cross, which was once a symbol of torture and death, has now become a symbol of hope and redemption. It is through His wounds that we have been healed. May we praise God for His love for us and remember the words from the Gospel this week, “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.” (John 3:16) Together we pray, “We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.”

Father John

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