The Surrendering Sign of Victory

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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

A reflection from Father Tudgay for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

This Sunday marks a departure from the normal structure of the Church’s liturgical year with our celebration of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. This celebration gives us the opportunity to deepen our understanding of Jesus’ victory over sin and death and its impact on our daily lives. The Cross represents the fundamental Christian symbol that expresses the unfathomable love that God has for every one of us. 

In our tradition, we focus on the experience of suffering, not as something to be unduly sought after, but as a reality that we must face from time to time. If we’re honest, we know that there is some suffering that comes our way and that periodic suffering is a reality that we really can’t totally avoid. Does this mean that we celebrate or glorify misfortune or uncomfortable or tragic moments or events that come our way? Do we intentionally cause injury in the lives of others or ourselves? The emphasis of the Christian life is to be a cause and source of mercy, forgiveness, and grace for one another.  

The importance of this feast underscores the radical dimension of God’s love for us. The sublime words that conclude the Gospel Passage illustrates the Father’s profound love and its accessibility for anyone who places their life in Christ. And for us, that trust includes placing our struggles and our crosses and our suffering in the hands of Christ, whose voluntary suffering opens the way to eternal life for us. The symbol and importance of the Holy Cross in our lives keeps God’s solidarity with our struggles – whatever they may be – front and center in our awareness. It illustrates that there is not any dimension of our life that is off limits from God’s love for us. 

Our embrace of our crosses, when we unite them to Jesus’ cross, shapes how we carry those crosses. By uniting our crosses to Jesus’ cross, our struggles and suffering transition from a source of isolation and bitterness to a source of grace, mercy, and solidarity with those who are suffering in our world. Our embrace of our struggles, crosses, and challenges in communion with Jesus, opens our eyes to see the suffering of others. And in Christ, we can’t help but respond to our suffering brothers and sisters with nothing other than love, mercy, and compassion. The triumphant irony of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross allows the inevitable reality of human suffering not only to be a source of personal grace for us, but also a transformative source of mercy and compassion for others.