September 14, 2026
Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
Lectionary: 638
Reading 1
With their patience worn out by the journey,
the people complained against God and Moses,
"Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert,
where there is no food or water?
We are disgusted with this wretched food!"
In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents,
which bit the people so that many of them died.
Then the people came to Moses and said,
"We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you.
Pray the LORD to take the serpents from us."
So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses,
"Make a saraph and mount it on a pole,
and if any who have been bitten look at it, they will live."
Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole,
and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent
looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm
78:1bc-2, 34-35, 36-37, 38
R. (see 7b) Do not forget the works of the Lord!
Hearken, my people, to my teaching;
incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable,
I will utter mysteries from of old.
R. Do not forget the works of the Lord!
While he slew them they sought him
and inquired after God again,
Remembering that God was their rock
and the Most High God, their redeemer.
R. Do not forget the works of the Lord!
But they flattered him with their mouths
and lied to him with their tongues,
Though their hearts were not steadfast toward him,
nor were they faithful to his covenant.
R. Do not forget the works of the Lord!
But he, being merciful, forgave their sin
and destroyed them not;
Often he turned back his anger
and let none of his wrath be roused.
R. Do not forget the works of the Lord!
Reading 2
Brothers and sisters:
Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death,
even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you,
because by your Cross you have redeemed the world.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus said to Nicodemus:
"No one has gone up to heaven
except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.
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."
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.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091426.cfm
(Note:When this feast is celebrated on a weekday, there
is a choice of readings before the Gospel. If the feast falls on a Sunday, both
readings are read.)
Commentary on
Numbers 21:4-9; Philippians 2:6-11; John 3:13-17
The Gospel reading is from John. He compares Jesus’ being
lifted up on the Cross to the incident in the Book of Numbers (one of today’s
Readings), where a plague of serpents is sent against the Israelites because of
their constant complaining against God. When they beg Moses for help, God tells
him to put an image of a serpent on a pole. All those who look at the bronze
serpent would be healed.
In a much more radical way, Jesus is also lifted up so:
…that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
And this life comes because Jesus’ giving of his life on the
Cross is a sign of his Father’s love for each and every one of us. For, as
Jesus will tell his disciples at the Last Supper:
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life
for one’s friends. (John 15:13)
And in today’s reading he also says:
Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to
condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.
The word “Exaltation” in the name of today’s feast means a
‘lifting up’, and in the Gospel of John, Jesus says that he, being “lifted up”
will draw all peoples to himself. This ‘lifting up’ refers not only to Jesus’
being physically raised on the Cross. In John’s presentation of the Paschal
Mystery, Jesus dies on the Cross, passes to new life (Resurrection), returns to
the Father (Ascension), and breathes forth the Spirit (Pentecost). Jesus is
totally ‘exalted’ on the Cross.
The Second Reading is from the Letter of Paul to the
Philippians and contains the famous kenosis hymn about
Jesus. Kenosis means an ‘emptying’. Jesus was the Incarnate
Son of God and shared the divinity with his Father and the Spirit on an equal
level. Yet, in order to bring us salvation and life without end, Jesus:
…emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness.
He did this in service to us. He adopted our human condition
totally and he even went lower than this by submitting to one of the most
terrible forms of death, death by crucifixion. And all of this was to help us
understand the extent of his Father’s love for each one of us.
Because of this self-giving and self-emptying:
Therefore God exalted him even more highly
and gave him the name
that is above every other name,
so that at the name given to Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Hence, the Cross is a much esteemed symbol for Christians
everywhere and a way by which they express their faith. We place a cross in our
churches and homes, in the classrooms of our schools and in other Christian
institutions. Many wear a cross as part of their dress.
We remember Jesus’ words to his followers:
…whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not
worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their
life for my sake will find it. (Matt 10:38-39)
As we often sing after the Consecration during the
Eucharist:
Dying, you destroyed our death; rising you restored our
life.
https://sacredspace.com/commentary/f0914r/
Monday,
September 14, 2026
Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross
Opening Prayer
Oh Father who wanted to save man by the Cross of Christ, Your
Son, grant to us who have known on earth His mystery of love, to enjoy in
Heaven the fruits of His redemption. We ask this through Christ our Lord.
LECTIO
Gospel Reading – Jn 3: 13-17
Jesus said to Nicodemus:
"No one has gone up to
heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. 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."
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.
MEDITATIO
Key for the Reading:
The text for today’s liturgy has
been taken from the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. It should not
surprise us that the passage chosen for this celebration forms part of the
fourth Gospel, because, it is precisely this Gospel which presents the mystery
of the cross of the Lord as the exaltation. This is clear from the beginning of
the Gospel: “as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the Son of man
be lifted up” (Jn 3: 14; Dan 7: 13). John explains the mystery of the Incarnate
Word in the paradoxical movement of the descent-ascent (Jn 1: 14, 18; 3: 13).
In fact, it is this mystery which offers the key for the reading in order to
understand the evolution of the identity and of the mission of the passus et
gloriosus (suffering and glorious) of Jesus Christ, and that we may well say
that this is not only valid for the text of John. The Letter to the Ephesians,
for example, uses this paradoxical movement to explain the mystery of Christ:
“Now, when it says, ‘He went up’, it must mean that He had gone down to the
deepest levels of the earth” (Eph 4: 9).
Jesus is the Son of God who
becoming Son of man (Jn 3: 13) makes known to us the mysteries of God (Jn 1:
18). He alone can do this, in so far as He alone has seen the Father (Jn 6:
46). We can say that the mystery of the Word who descends from Heaven responds
to the yearning of the prophets: who will go up to heaven to reveal this
mystery to us? (cf. Deut 30: 12; Prov 30: 4). The fourth Gospel is full of
references to the mystery of He who “is from Heaven” (1 Cor 15:
47). The following are some
quotations or references: Jn 6: 33, 38, 51, 62; 8: 42; 16: 28-30; 17: 5.
The exaltation of Jesus is
precisely in His descent to come to us, unto death, and death on the Cross, on
which He was lifted up like the serpent in the desert, which, “anybody… who looked at it would survive” (Num 21: 7-9;
Zech 12: 10). John reminds us in the scene of the death of Jesus Christ being
lifted up: “They will look to the one whom they have pierced” (Jn 19: 37). In
the context of the fourth Gospel, “to turn and look” means “to know,” “to
understand,” “to see.”
Frequently, in John’s Gospel,
Jesus speaks about His being lifted up: “When you have lifted up the Son of
Man, then you will know that I am He” (Jn 8: 28); “when I am lifted up from the
earth, I shall draw all peoples to Myself. By these words He indicated the kind
of death He would die” (Jn 12: 32-33). In the synoptics also Jesus announces to
His disciples the mystery of His condemnation to death on the cross (see Mt 20:
27-29; Mk 10: 32-34; Lk 18: 31-33). In fact, Christ had “to suffer all that to
enter into His glory” (Lk 24: 26).
This mystery reveals the great
love which God has for us. He is the Son given to us, “so that anyone who
believes in Him will not be lost, but will have eternal life,” this Son whom we
have rejected and crucified. But precisely in this rejection on our part, God
has manifested Himself to us His fidelity and His love which does not stop
before the hardness of our heart. And even in spite of our rejection and our
contempt He gives us salvation (cf. Acts 4: 27-28), remaining firm in
fulfilling His plan of mercy: God, in fact, has not sent His Son into the world
to condemn the world, but in order that the world may be saved through Him.”
A Few Questions:
•
What struck you in the Gospel?
•
What does the exaltation of Christ and of His
cross mean for you?
•
What consequences does this paradoxical movement
of descent-ascent imply in the living out of faith?
ORATIO
Psalm 77 (1-2, 34-38)
My people, listen to My teaching, pay attention to what I say.
I will speak to you in a parable, unfold the mysteries of the
past.
Whenever He slaughtered them,
they began to seek Him; they turned back and looked eagerly for Him, recalling
that God was their rock, God the Most High, their redeemer.
They tried to flatter Him with their mouths; their tongues
were deceitful towards Him. Their hearts were not loyal to Him; they were not
faithful to His covenant. But in His compassion He forgave their guilt instead
of killing them, time and again repressing His
anger instead of rousing His full wrath.
CONTEMPLATIO
"Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the
Father." (Phil 2: 11)
The Exaltation of the Holy Cross
The Cross is one of the most central objects of the
Christian faith. It is the symbol of God’s love for us expressed by the
self-sacrificing death of Jesus, his Incarnate Son.
The public veneration of the Cross originated in the fourth
century. According to legend it began with the miraculous discovery of the True
Cross by Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, on 14 September, 326, while
she was on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was then
built at the site of the discovery by order of Helena and Constantine. The
church was dedicated nine years later, with a portion of the cross placed
inside it in 335. This was a two-day festival. Although the actual consecration
of the church was on September 13, the cross itself was brought outside the
church on September 14 so that the clergy and faithful could come forward to
venerate it.
In the year 627, during the reign of the Emperor Heraclius I
of Constantinople, the Persians conquered the city of Jerusalem and removed a
major part of the Cross from its sanctuary. The emperor determined to recover
the relic which he regarded as the new Ark of the Covenant for the new People
of God. Before leaving Constantinople with his army, Heraclius went to the
church wearing black in a spirit of penance; he prostrated himself before the
altar and begged God to sustain his courage. In the ensuing war, the emperor
was victorious. One of the conditions of a peace treaty was the return of the
Cross in the same condition as when it was removed. On his return to
Constantinople Heraclius was received by the acclamations of the people. They
came out to meet him with olive branches and torches. The Cross was honoured
with a grand triumph.
The emperor then wished to give thanks to God by going in
person to return the Cross to Jerusalem, after an absence of 14 years. In
Jerusalem, he wished to carry the Cross on his shoulders, but on reaching the
gate leading to Calvary, he could not go forward. He was astonished and his
retinue could not understand. The Patriarch Zachary then said to him:
Take care, O Emperor! In truth, the imperial clothing you
are wearing does not sufficiently resemble the poor and humiliated condition of
Jesus carrying His cross.
Heraclius then removed his shoes and bejewelled robes.
Wearing a poor man’s tunic, he was able to proceed to Calvary and replace the
Cross. It is said the occasion was marked by a number of miracles: a dead man
returning to life, four paralytics cured, ten lepers healed, 15 blind men given
their sight, several possessed people exorcised and many sick people totally
healed.
https://sacredspace.com/commentary/f0914s
