2025-09-14 The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

September 14, 2025 - The Exaltation of the Holy Cross 

Welcome everybody - today we will read from pages 120 and 121 on the feast of the exaltation of the Holy Cross - the symbol of our salvation as also the call to discipleship.

- Bishop Barron : most vile symbol of torture and cruelty in the Roman Empire 

- Suffering is the way of discipleship but  yoke to Christ 

Let's take a moment to say a silent prayer for the victims of 9/11 and all the senseless wars and violence all over the world - there are no winners, only losers. And sadness on the part of God for the havoc mankind is wreaking on his creation.

Opening Prayer

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Heavenly Father,
We thank You for gathering us here in Your name.
As we open Your Holy Word,
we ask You to send forth Your Holy Spirit to be among us.
Open our hearts to receive Your truth.
Open our minds to understand Your message.
Open our lips to speak words of love, encouragement, and wisdom.
May Your Word be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.
May it inspire us, challenge us, and lead us closer to You.
Help us to listen with humility,
to speak with charity,
and to grow together in faith, hope, and love.
Bless our sharing today,
and let Your presence dwell in every word we read and reflect upon.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Action item from last week 

- reach out to someone struggling with fear or anxiety

Readings on pages 

Numbers 21:4b-9

By this time, the people have been wandering in the wilderness of Kadesh for 40 years, and they don’t seem to have made much progress, with nothing to eat or drink but wretched manna. The people speak against God and Moses. So how does God respond? By afflicting them with venomous snakes, the ungrateful are weeded out. A repentant people, seeing the folly of their ways, beg Moses to intercede, and he does, and God, rather than removing the snakes, sends a cure for snakebite. The danger of poisonous snakes doesn’t go away; they’ll still get bitten, but God does offer healing - God instructs him to make a serpent of bronze and put it on a pole; all who look at the bronze snake are healed. Remember, ultimately, that even those who are so healed will not live to reach the Promised Land - a grim reminder that in our own journey, even though we receive the Holy Spirit at Baptism, we fall into sin. Jesus can make us whole again if we turn to the cross, and not everyone will get to Heaven, if we fall back into our sinful ways

Psalm 78

Psalm 78 is the second-longest psalm in the Psalter; only Psalm 119 is longer. This psalm is an instruction or meditation in poetic form about how to live a godly life by giving an example of how NOT to live. It describes the life of the Israelites from the time in Egypt to the election of David as king. The people knew that God was their rock and redeemer (verse 35), but their memory of this was short so time and again they were back to ”normal” again; and normal in their case was disobedience, lies, and an unsteady heart. In contrast to the fickle people, God is depicted as compassionate, forgiving, and mild (verse 38). 

Philippians 2:6-11

St Paul, who grew up fully steeped in the Roman culture, understood well the terror of the Cross - the most painful public way to die reserved for the worst of the worst criminals. He further says christ took the form of a slave - in the Roman context a slave is at the very bottom of the totem pole. With no rights or dignity, to be bought, sold and even killed at the whim of the master.
Paul purposely reminds them that the Roman symbols of torture and slavery are in fact redemptive in the eyes of Christ where everyone reborn in baptism is equal thanks to the salvation of the cross

John 3:13-17

In Numbers 21, poisonous serpents (literally, fiery serpents) have been let loose in the camp of Israel as punishment for the people’s grumbling and unfaithfulness. The story tells us that the serpents bite the Israelites and many people die. Desperate, the people repent and ask Moses to talk to God on their behalf. Moses does so, and God commands Moses to raise up a bronze serpent for the people to look at. When they gaze upon the lifted serpent, the people who were poisoned live.
John seems to use the bronze-snake analogy to demonstrate how people will receive life (or gain salvation, or enter the kingdom, or participate in abundant life) from Jesus. When the Israelites looked at the bronze serpent, the source of their death became the agent of their healing and survival. So it is with the cross.
When people look at Jesus lifted up on the cross, they are looking at how their sinfulness was redeemed. This revelation, the recognition of the the consequences of their sins will be enough to help them start as true disciples of Christ and in doing so bring about the healing of humanity. 
Once we bring God's Kingdom here on Earth, we fulfill the plans of God the Father who so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that all who believe in him might not perish but have eternal life

Closing Prayer

O God,
who willed that your Only Begotten Son
should undergo the Cross to save the human race,
grant, we pray,
that we who have known His mystery on earth
may merit the grace of His redemption in heaven.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

Amen.