Today, September 14, Christians celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. But isn't that a contradiction? How can an instrument of death, pain, and suffering be exalted? It can be done only if death, pain, and suffering are faced out of love and in order to give love back to humanity.
Discover the meaning of the cross and Jesus' love for each of us.
The origins of the feast
According to tradition, Saint Helena, Constantine's mother, rediscovered the true cross of Christ in 326 during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. She brought part of the cross to Rome and placed it in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, which she had built herself. Constantine had one basilica erected on Golgotha and another over Jesus' tomb; the dedication of these two basilicas took place on September 13, 335: the following day, September 14, the significant role of the two churches was commemorated.
Life springs from a symbol of death
The cross, already a symbol of the most terrible of tortures, is the tree of life for Christians, because Christ's glorification passes through the torture of the cross, and the antithesis between suffering and glorification becomes fundamental in the history of redemption. Our King is different from all the others: he reigns from a cross, not from a golden throne, to say that infinite love gives itself to the very end.
In the cross, love reaches its peak
On today's solemnity, in fact, the Church emphasizes God's love, a love that reaches its peak in the gift of his Son. In this regard, Pope Francis states that the mystery of the cross is fulfilled in «Jesus, who came down from heaven to bring us all up to heaven». He goes on to explain that we can fall into two temptations: the first is to see «a Christ without the cross, that is, a spiritual teacher who leads you forward peacefully; there are no sufferings, or at least you flee from suffering and move on. The other temptation is the cross without Christ, the anguish of remaining below, cast down, weighed down by the burden of sin, without hope». Instead, the Church exalts Christ's cross precisely because it carries hope with it; it anticipates glory and resurrection for everyone. «To be healed from sin, let us look at Christ crucified», said Saint Augustine. Raising our eyes to the Crucified One, we adore him who came to take upon himself the sin of the world, to give us eternal life and teach us to love.
