Homily for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Homily for the Feast of the
Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Sept. 14, 2025
John 3: 13-17
Phil 2: 6-11
Villa Maria, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

Christ on the Cross with Sts. Vincent Ferrer, John the Baptist, Mark, and Antoninus
(The Master of Fiesole Epiphany)

“The Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3: 14-15).

In the Roman world, a cross was the ultimate symbol of degradation and torture.  Crucifixion was a very painful way to die, reserved for slaves and the worst of criminals.  It was done publicly for the humiliation of the condemned and as a warning to others.  So St. Paul speaks of Jesus’ “taking the form of a slave” (Phil 2:7) and “becoming obedient … even to death on a cross” (2:8).

The Son of Man so humiliated is also the Son of God.  He’s the incarnation of God’s love for the human race, God’s love in human flesh.  So many members of our race have suffered and still suffer humiliation, degradation, pain, cruelty, torture, slavery, exile, and death:  from wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, and dozens of other places; from home invasion, torture, and murder in Queens; from school shootings; from drug trafficking and sexual trafficking; from having families ripped apart, parents or spouses shipped off to prison; from the slaughter of unborn people; from cancer and other diseases; from too many horrors to add to the list.

“Christ Jesus, tho he was in the form of God, didn’t regard equality with God something to be grasped” (2:6), something to cling to.  Rather, he identifies himself with all the miseries of our humanity.  In Christ, God is in solidarity with us.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16), his Son who, in obedience to the Father, cared for the downtrodden in his earthly ministry and preached God’s love for everyone, even for sinners, even for outcasts like lepers, the Samaritan woman, and Roman soldiers; and therefore the powerful had to eliminate him.  Nothing has changed when the powerful are challenged.

But Christ still identifies with the lowly, the sick, the migrant, and the persecuted:  “Whatever you did for the least of my brothers and sisters, you did for me” (Matt 25:40).

The cross on which the Son of Man was lifted up represents all of that (cf. John 3:14).

But the cross is glorious.  We celebrate the exaltation of the holy cross, because thru his resurrection Christ lifts us up with him.  The cross isn’t the end but the beginning:  “everyone who believes in him [will] not perish but [will] have eternal life” (3:16), and thru the Son of God we are saved (3:17)—saved from all our suffering, pain, and humiliation, which are the price of our sinfulness.  We’ll be raised up with our Lord Jesus on the Last Day.  We’ll become part of the chorus of angels and saints confessing for eternity “that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:11).