SEPTEMBER 14, 2015 : FEAST OF THE EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
Lectionary: 638

Reading 1NM 21:4B-9

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 PsalmPS 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 2PHIL 2:6-11

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.

GospelJN 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.

www.usccb.org

Meditation:  "So must the Son of Man be lifted up"

Do you know the healing transforming power of the cross of Jesus Christ? The Lord Jesus came to unite earth with heaven and to raise those on earth to the glory of heaven. Jesus explains to Nicodemus, one of the chief leaders of the Jewish nation, that he is the "Son of Man" sent by the Father in heaven to restore our broken relationship with God. The "Son of Man" is a key Old Testament title for the Messiah who comes from heaven to establish God's kingdom on the earth (see the prophecy of Daniel 7:13-14). 

Moses delivers his people from death in the wilderness
What does Jesus mean when he says the "Son of Man must be lifted up?" Jesus links this expression with Moses who "lifted up" the bronze serpent in the wilderness in order to bring about healing and restoration of life to those who were bitten by deadly serpents. This plague of death was the result of the peoples' stubborn refusal to follow God's counsel and direction for their welfare. God in his mercy heard the prayer of Moses to free his people from this curse. God instructed Moses to "make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every one who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live" (Numbers 21:8).  Moses lifted high the image of a bronze serpent fixed to the wood of the pole, which resembled a cross. Those who put their faith in God by repenting of their disobedience were healed and restored to wholeness of life.

Jesus links his victory on the cross with Moses' act of deliverance 
Jesus clearly links Moses' act of deliverance in the wilderness with his own impending sacrificial death when he will be "lifted up" on the wood of the cross at Calvary. Unlike Moses' deliverance in the wilderness which only resulted in temporary relief for the people, Jesus' atoning death on the cross brought decisive victory over sin, Satan, and death. Jesus' victory on the cross cancels the debt of our sin, and releases us from guilt and condemnation. His death and victory brings us new life - the new abundant life in his Holy Spirit which lasts forever. 

Jesus' victory on the cross also brought about his glorious bodily resurrection to new unending life and his ascension to the right hand of the Father in heaven, where he now rules and intercedes for us. The result of Jesus "being lifted up on the cross," and his rising and ascending to the Father's right hand in heaven, is our "new birth in the Spirit" and adoption as sons and daughters of God. God not only has redeemed us from sin in Christ, he also fills us with his own divine life through the gift of his Spirit that we might share in his own glory.

The proof of God's love for us
There is no greater proof of God's love for us then the sending of his Son to become one with us in our humanity and to lay down his life for us. "To ransom a slave God gave his Son" (an ancient prayer from the Easter vigil liturgy). God sent his Son to free us from the worst of tyrannies - slavery to sin and the curse of death. Jesus' sacrificial death was an act of total love through self-giving. Jesus gave himself completely out of love for his Father. And he willing laid down his life out of selfless love for our sake and for our salvation. His death on the cross was both a total offering to God and the perfect sacrifice of atonement for our sin and the sin of the world.

John tells us that God's love cannot be limited because it is boundless and encompasses all of creation (John 3:16). His love is not limited to a single nation or a few chosen friends. His love is limitless because it embraces the whole world and every individual created in "his image and likeness". God is a persistent loving Father who cannot rest until all of his wandering children have returned home to him. Saint Augustine says, God loves each one of us as if there were only one of us to love. 

The love of God is rooted in truth, goodness, and mercy
God gives us the freedom to choose whom and what we will love and not love. We can love the darkness of sin and unbelief or we can love the light of God's truth, goodness, and mercy. If our love is guided by truth, goodness, and that which is truly beautiful, then we will choose for God and love him above all else. What we love shows what we prefer. Do you love God who is the supreme good above all else? And do you seek to put him first in all your thoughts, cares, choices, and actions?

God's love sets us free to love and serve others
God's love has been poured into our hearts through the gift of the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). Do you allow God's love to purify your heart and the way your treat others? Do you allow God's love to transform your mind and the way you think of others? Do you allow God's love to conquer every unruly passion and addiction that would enslave you to sin and harmful behavior? The Holy Spirit gives us his seven-fold gifts of wisdom and understanding, right judgment and courage, knowledge and reverence for God and his ways, and a holy fear in God's presence (see Isaiah 11) that we may live God's way of life and serve in the power and strength of his enduring love and mercy. Do you thirst for new life in the Spirit?

"Lord Jesus Christ, your death brought life for us. Fill me with your Holy Spirit that I may walk in freedom and joy as a child of God and as an heir with Christ of an eternal inheritance."

www.dailyscripture.net

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, JOHN 3:13-17
JOHN 3:13-17
FEAST OF THE EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS
(Numbers 21:4b-9; Psalm 78; Philippians 2:6-11)

KEY VERSE: "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up" (v 14). 
TO KNOW: On the Israelite's trek to the Promised Land, they ran out of food and water and were worn out from their long journey. The people complained against God and Moses that they had been brought out to the desert to die. They forgot the works of the Lord and did not hear God’s words of mercy. As punishment for their lack of trust in God’s providence, some of them were bitten by snakes and died. When Moses interceded on behalf of the people, God commanded him to make an image of a serpent (the ancient symbol of evil) and mount it on a pole. All who looked upon it were healed. How could healing be found in gazing on such a mysterious sign? Jesus made an analogy of the bronze serpent to the saving power of the cross, a sign of both sin and redemption. When God lifted Jesus up, "exalted" him, in the resurrection, the cross was no longer a sign of shame and defeat, but a sign of victory and salvation. Jesus came into the world to bring healing not judgment, salvation not condemnation, life not death. Those things in our lives that cause pain and suffering in our lives can be an instrument for our deliverance.
TO LOVE: Do I adorn my home and person with the cross, the symbol of God's saving love? 
TO SERVE: When you hear abuse of Jesus' sacred name, bow your head and say, "Jesus Christ is Lord!"

NOTE: During the fourth century, the Church was relatively free from persecution since Constantine's Edict of Milan (313 AD) declared Christianity a tolerated religion. Yet most Christians were uncomfortable displaying the cross as it depicted a painful and gruesome method of public execution. This didn't mean that early Christians neglected the cross. Apparently the custom of making the sign of the cross on one's forehead was widespread fairly early. Tertullian wrote about 204 AD: "At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign." St. Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, was a Christian. She was obsessed with a desire to find the cross on which Christ had been crucified. In this quest, she allegedly identified and excavated almost every significant site pertaining to the Gospel stories. According to legend, Helena discovered the True Cross while on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 326. 

www.togetherwithgodsword.com

Monday 14 September 2015

MON 14TH. Exaltation of the Cross. Numbers 21:4-9. Do not forget the works of the Lord!—Ps 77(78):1-2, 34-38. Phillippians 2:6-11. John 3:13-17.

Readings

‘The Son of Man must be lifted up.’

Today’s readings bring home to us the frailty of the human condition through the ages. In the days of Moses, the Israelites soon forgot how much they owed God in leading them out of Egypt. Initially, God punished them but, in response to Moses’ prayer, God forgave them. By looking at the uplifted bronze snake, they could be healed.

The psalmist exhorts the people not to forget the works of the Lord. Paul teaches the Philippians to emulate the humility and greatness of Christ.

John tells us that everyone who believes in the Son of Man must lift him up, exalt him. All who seek eternal life must look up to Jesus as the only Son of God and believe this in their hearts. Let us pray for the grace to always believe that Jesus was sent by his Father to be the Saviour of the human race.

www.pray.com.au

MINUTE MEDITATIONS 

Choosing Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling. We might still feel hurt by someone, but we can choose to forgive. That begins healing the wounds we have received.

— from A 40-Day Spiritual Workout for Catholics 

September 14
Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Early in the fourth century St. Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, went to Jerusalem in search of the holy places of Christ's life. She razed the second-century Temple of Aphrodite, which tradition held was built over the Savior's tomb, and her son built the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher over the tomb. During the excavation, workers found three crosses. Legend has it that the one on which Jesus died was identified when its touch healed a dying woman.

The cross immediately became an object of veneration. At a Good Friday celebration in Jerusalem toward the end of the fourth century, according to an eyewitness, the wood was taken out of its silver container and placed on a table together with the inscription Pilate ordered placed above Jesus' head: Then "all the people pass through one by one; all of them bow down, touching the cross and the inscription, first with their foreheads, then with their eyes; and, after kissing the cross, they move on."

To this day the Eastern Churches, Catholic and Orthodox alike, celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on the September anniversary of the basilica's dedication. The feast entered the Western calendar in the seventh century after Emperor Heraclius recovered the cross from the Persians, who had carried it off in 614, 15 years earlier. According to the story, the emperor intended to carry the cross back into Jerusalem himself, but was unable to move forward until he took off his imperial garb and became a barefoot pilgrim.

Comment:

The cross is today the universal image of Christian belief. Countless generations of artists have turned it into a thing of beauty to be carried in procession or worn as jewelry. To the eyes of the first Christians, it had no beauty. It stood outside too many city walls, decorated only with decaying corpses, as a threat to anyone who defied Rome's authority—including Christians who refused sacrifice to Roman gods. Although believers spoke of the cross as the instrument of salvation, it seldom appeared in Christian art unless disguised as an anchor or the Chi-Rho until after Constantine's edict of toleration.

Quote:

"How splendid the cross of Christ! It brings life, not death; light, not darkness; Paradise, not its loss. It is the wood on which the Lord, like a great warrior, was wounded in hands and feet and side, but healed thereby our wounds. A tree has destroyed us, a tree now brought us life" (Theodore of Studios).

www.americancatholic.org

DIVINA LECTIO: THE EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS - JN. 3,13-17

Lectio: 

 Monday, September 14, 2015

Anyone who believes in Jesus has eternal life.

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.

1. LECTIO

Reading:

Jesus said to Nicodemus: 'No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of man; as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.
For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.

2. MEDITATIO

a) Key for the reading:

The text proposed to us by the 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; Dn 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 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” (Ef 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. Dt 30, 12; Pr 30, 4). The fourth Gospel is over fool of references to the mystery of he who “is from Heaven” (1 Co 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, up to death, and the death on the Cross, on which he was lifted up like the serpent in the desert, which, “anybody… who looked at it would survive” (Nm 21,7-9; Zc 12,10). John reminds us in the scene of the death of Jesus of 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”.

b) A few questions:

i) What struck you in the Gospel?
ii) What does the exaltation of Christ and of his cross mean for you?
iii) What consequences does this paradoxical movement of descent-ascent imply in the living out of faith?

3. 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 poetry,
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 hoodwink 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.

4. CONTEMPLATIO

"Jesus Christ as Lord,
to the glory of God the Father." (Phil 2,11)

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