SEPTEMBER 14,
2011 – TRIUMPH OF THE CROSS: NUM 21:4-9 ; PHIL 2:6-11 ; JOHN 3:13-17
The mystery of the Cross of Jesus confronts us today with a
particular force calculated to raise in our minds and
heart some of the most fundamental issues of our human condition. For the cross
on which Jesus hung was an instrument of torture and death, that became a
symbol of victorious love, fruitfully bearing eternal life. This feast of the Triumph of the Cross commemorates
the striking paradox that death, accepted with trusting faith in obedience to
the Will of God, is not the end of personal existence, but a beginning of a
fuller and unending life. Beethoven had some insight into this strange reversal
of the human condition, taking as the theme of his last symphony “Freude durch
What we celebrate in
this liturgy that unites us here this morning is incomparably surpassing event,
the victorious death of Jesus, symbolized by the cross, that
gives a fresh meaning to life itself. For the joy that follows from the cross
is eternal. Because our Lord, obedient to the Father’s plan, accepted to die on
the cross, death and life both take on a new meaning. The result is that by
taking the cross of Jesus as our standard, we begin to live by a hope that
opens out into unending fullness of life in God. Thus in the Triumph of the
Cross, as the Apocalypse puts it, God himself gives us assurance saying : “See, I make all things new.”
That the cross
itself became a symbol for Christian faith, a sign of hope and of victory over
death in the early Church was a striking reversal that continues to give
expression to the paradox that God chooses the weak and lowly to carry out his
merciful plan of redemption. Through
this plan he becomes the biodotor
(giver of life) as the fourth century Greek commentator of
The more we reflect on the nature even of the simplest
forms of life, the greater our awareness of the hidden intelligence, and beauty
that is embedded in all living things. Just as heightening of complexity marks
the appearance of more developed living creatures, so also do they reflect a
more noble beauty and display more abundant intelligence. Sensitivity to these
qualities of the human person, when cultivated through contemplative prayer
that comes to know God in His created universe results in a new sense of the
dignity that belongs to each and every person. In our times of an increasing
secularism and weakening sense of the basis of the most fundamental of human
worth, a major challenge to the Catholic priest is to serve as a witness to the
presence of the Spirit of God within, and to communicate something of the worth
and significance of this transcendent capacity of the redeemed human heart. May
this Eucharistic celebration in honor of the Triumph of Cross, commemorating
the death and resurrection of Jesus as it does, be a source of grace that
enables each of us to prove faithful ministers of the new life that alone
fulfills the aspirations of the human heart.&.