Perhaps many of you know how important a
figure was a man named Constantine. He was the first Christian ruler of the
Roman Empire, who ruled early in the 4th century. In 313, He issued the Edict
of Milan, which made Christianity legal, and from there, our Faith grew by
leaps and bounds. His rule brought a unity between the Eastern and Western
kingdoms and his seat of power became the city of Constantinople. As important
as Constantine was, his mother was equally important in the history of
Christianity. Her name was Helena and she was a strong woman. One of her
missions was to find the cross that Jesus died on. She tore down a pagan temple
and began digging for the true cross. Tradition holds that she found three
crosses and had to figure out which one belonged to Christ. There was a sick
woman, near death, who was brought to the site. When she was placed on the
first two crosses, her condition didn't improve. When she touched the third
cross, she was healed instantly. At that moment, St. Helena knew she had found
the cross that redeemed the world from its sins. The cross was cut into tiny
pieces and sent all over the world. The Cathedral basilica has a one of these
pieces of the true cross and you can venerate it on Good Friday.
Thanks to St. Helena, we can see and
touch the Holy Cross, which as Catholics, probably doesn’t seem all that
strange or unusual. But take another look up at the altar, look at the
crucifixion scene where Christ hangs above his Mother Mary and the Apostle
John. If we stop and think about it, at least in human terms, celebrating the
cross is not only unusual; it is downright illogical. By modern standards,
Jesus was a total
failure. He had no
college degree - in fact, he had very little formal education at all. He had no career - in fact, for the last
three years of his life he had no
paying job at all. He had very little money - in fact, he had to live entirely
from donations and
begging. He didn't have a fancy house
or chariot - he slept outside most of the time, and traveled by foot. He had no friends
among the elite - in
fact, they considered him a lunatic
and a criminal. He
wasn't even popular
among the people of his hometown
- when he preached in their synagogue, they tried to throw him off a cliff. By all the standards according to
which success is usually measured, Jesus was a total failure and this failure would be most powerfully seen in his
death on the cross, which was considered the most painful and humiliating way
to die.
And
yet, St Paul is able to write in today's Second Reading that God the Father has
given him "the name that is above
every name," and he is the Lord before whom "every knee must bend." Why did God the Father raise Jesus to the eternal throne of
glory, exalting him so
thoroughly, if his life was a failure?
This happened because God's standards are
different than this world's
standards. According to God's standards, Jesus triumphed in the one category
that really matters and that is humble service. As we just heard in St Paul's Letter to
the Philippians, Jesus "emptied
himself, taking the form of a slave... "...he humbled himself, becoming obedient
to death, even death on a cross. "Because
of this, God greatly exalted him..."
This is what the Church is celebrating on today's Feast of
the Exaltation the Cross;
the victory of Christ's humility
over the pride of the devil.
God is training us
to have a humble heart like his,
a heart that St John described beautifully in today's Gospel: "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."
Christ shows us a humble God, more interested in us and our needs than in himself. That's why Christ's self-sacrificial death on the cross
won an eternal victory over the self-centered
indulgence of sin.
We
all can appreciate the beauty
and value of humility.
It frees us from anxiously
worrying about what
other people think of us. It also frees us from the paralyzing fear of failure and
allows us to maximize our human potential. Humility transforms us from
self-centered individuals into people that care for others and put them first.
We would all
like to be humble. Yet, few of us like to
be humbled, which is the only way to grow in humility. Luckily, God has
given us a shortcut.
If we want, we can
grow steadily and deeply
in humility. This shortcut is something within easy reach for all; it's called the sacrament of reconciliation.
This sacrament fosters
true humility for two reasons. First, when we go to
confession, we aren't being
humiliated; rather we are actively
humbling ourselves.
Every time we receive this sacrament worthily, we are growing in humility because we kneel before God's representative
and admit our failings, our sins, and need for God's grace.
But secondly, since
confession is a sacrament,
it actually increases the grace of God
in our soul, pouring grace onto the wounds of sin, so that they heal
with supernatural
speed and effectiveness. The Pope
understands this, that's why he goes to confession every week. All of the saints of our
church have known this and often made use of this great sacrament.
Look again at the
crucifix. See in Christ the perfection of humility and the fullness of
greatness. Resist the temptation of our society to view humility as a weakness
or failure. Oftentimes our world doesn’t value humility because it doesn’t
value the cross. But for God,
humility matters most, as he will demonstrate by giving himself to us in the
Eucharist. On this feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross let us pray for
the grace to value the cross as we experience it in our own lives. If we do so,
we can be sure that humility will follow and we will be exalted forever as
friends of God in the life to come.
