Pt. Dominic Tạ Đình Thiện

THE GLORIOUS CROSS

Numbers 21:4b-9; Philippians 2:6-11; John 3:13-17

Last week, the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, we heard Jesus tell the crowd, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” It was a harsh and difficult statement to hear because the passage implies that Christian discipleship is not about the gospel of prosperity, nor comfort, nor about feeling good fellowship. Discipleship requires the embracing of the cross, but it is so challenging that more people cannot faithfully follow Christ. According to the 2024 statistics by the Pew Research report, for every one person entering the Catholic Church through OCIA, 8.4 people left the Church. This is a significant shift from a 2014 study, in which the ratio was 1:6. The question we should contemplate is WHY? And the answer is obviously the Cross.

Friends, today, we as a Church celebrate the Exaltation of the Cross for a reason. Historically, the Cross is seen as a symbol of death and suffering because the secular world uses it to inflict pain and suffering. Yet, for us as believers, it is far more—it is the glorious throne of Jesus Christ, who triumphed over death by His Resurrection, and opened the way to eternal life for all who believe in Him.

We are living in a world that seeks comfort and a complacent mentality. Such a mentality opposes the way of the cross. This attitude can be traced back to ancient times. In the book of Numbers that we heard in the first reading, the people of God were tired of the 40-year journey toward the Promised Land. They grew impatient due to the harshness of the desert and the lack of food and water. They reminisce about the complacent life in Egypt, a life of slavey, where food and water can be found. They forgot that the desert was freedom.

For them, hardship is like carrying a cross that is heavy, perhaps senseless, and painful. After all, they also had to observe all the laws and code that Moses set forth according to the covenant with God. So, the cross is so hard for the people of ancient times and even for us in the present day. This is why people are leaving the Church, because they cannot be faithful to the way of the cross.

In the Responsorial Psalms that we heard the choir chant earlier, the Psalmists reminded us that the people’s hearts are “not steadfast toward Him, nor were they faithful to His covenant”. The history of salvation, as recorded in the Old Testament, is a recollection of a pattern. A pattern of a Father who constantly forgives His children, His chosen people, who cannot seem to be firm and faithful toward the Lord, who has blessed them and saved them so many times. The challenge of steadfastness has to do with the lack of envisioning the end of the race, as St. Paul teaches. He said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:7). We must persevere to carry the cross that is equivalent to running the race and be faithful because we look toward the finished line as eternal life. For this, we do not want to lose.

You may say: Ah, carrying the cross is so hard; nobody can do this except Jesus. This is true, but it should not be an excuse. It is hard because the secular world tempts us to make it about ourselves or our ego. They influence us not to be obedient to God’s commandments of love. They influence us to seek comfort instead of the glorious throne of the cross. In the 2nd reading, St. Paul reminds us of two interconnected virtues. He said Jesus Christ, “humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). Hence, the barriers to embracing the cross are the lack of humility and obedience to God rather than the culture. We need to gaze on the cross to remember who is hung on the cross.

Jesus is our redeemer, and on the cross, He stretches out His arms to absorb all the sins of the world. On the cross, He cried out to the Father, “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Lk 23:34). This is Jesus’ prayer to the Father as

• He pleads for salvation and universal mercy,
• as He surrenders Himself through humility and emptying Himself to the world,
• as He calls out for personal forgiveness,
• as He reconciles the world to the Father,
• and reopens the door to eternal life that was locked due to the Fall of man.

This is why we Catholics venerate and exalt the Cross, because God turns it into an instrument of grace instead of defeat. He turns it into a vehicle of healing for our sins. You see, the serpent that Moses lifted up in the desert prefigures Christ, who was also lifted up on the cross “so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (Jn 3:15).

In the Good Friday liturgy, there is a part where the deacon processes from the back of the church toward the altar with the Cross. He chants, “Behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the salvation of the world.” And the congregation responds with “Come, let us adore”. Thus, we adore it because of Christ. He uses it as a throne for His victory over death. He uses it as a means of grace.

Friends, Mother Church celebrates the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross to remind us that the Incarnated Word of God and the Son of God came to the world not to “condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him”. This is how much God so loved us. This is how His mercy works, and that is through Christ, dying on the cross. Hence, when Mother Church administers the sacrament of Penance, the minister always uses the formula with the Sign of the Cross to forgive sinners.

Friends, today’s readings invite each of you to reflect on the meaning of the cross in your daily life. Be bold with conviction when you make the Sign of the Cross at home and in public places such as restaurants or the workplace. It is a Sign of our salvation, and every time we sign ourselves, we give praise and glory to the Holy Trinity. Every time we sign ourselves, we remember that “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” (Jn 3:16).

By the sacramental grace of the Eucharist and Reconciliation, may we persevere in the way of the Cross as a confession in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.