The month of September brings to us the celebration of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on the 14th of the month. The feast celebrates the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre around the year 335 and the feast has been part of the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church since around the 7th century.
In Latin American countries like Mexico, where I come from, the ‘Holy Cross Day’ as it is usually known, is celebrated on 3 May and the tradition for this day mentions that it celebrates the discovery of the True Cross of Christ by St Helen on 3 May 326.
The diversity of celebrations about the Holy Cross of Jesus is always an invitation for us to stop and reflect on the importance and significance that the Cross has in the Christian life. During the celebration of the Liturgy of the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday, we are called to “Behold the wood of the Cross on which hung the salvation of the world”.
The prominence of the Cross in the lives of the disciples is something that comes from Jesus Himself. In the minds and hearts of each of us, we hear the voice of Jesus about the necessity to carry our crosses and be ready to follow Him (Mk 8:34). Only then, we will be worthy of being His disciples (Mt 10:38; 16:24-28).
As we listen to the voice of Jesus, we are left wondering what Jesus means when He says that we need to carry our crosses to follow Him.
As we reflect on the words of Jesus, we see that to renounce oneself, to take our crosses, to follow Him, to lose our life, are all different aspects of the same reality, which is to freely decide whether we want to learn from Him as He slowly introduces us into the mystery of His own act of love for the Father who sent Him.
In some of my readings, I came across the statement that “the cross is the price we pay for being disciples”. This has been a very insightful thought into the mystery of the Cross in my own life. The reason for this is that many times we want to limit the carrying of our crosses to situations we do not like but that we do not have any control over them and we end up with the phrase “maybe this is the cross that I must carry”.
In my view, the carrying of the Cross has to be more dynamic than just the passive acceptance – it has to be the way we listen to the promptings of the Spirit of God in the way Jesus does: with trust, with hope and with prayer. Especially in those moments when things are more difficult to bear. Many times, we want to react according to our own impulses.
Many times, like the prophets of the Old Testament, we just want to tell God that life is too hard and we do not want to keep doing what he is asking of us (1 Kings 19:4-8). But the invitation of Jesus comes to us with the invitation and the condition that being His disciples requires a different way of reacting, a different way of attitude, a different way of speaking and at that moment, like Jesus, we are willing to say ‘yes’ to the invitation of being disciples and learn from Jesus.
The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross invites us also to see the invitation of Jesus as a sign of hope.
It is an invitation that in moments of darkness, we do not close ourselves in our loneliness where anger, despair, uncertainty, frustration or sadness would not give us the best advice.
On the opposite, we open ourselves up to the invitation of Jesus that in Him, we will find the rest and the strength we need to continue learning from Him in the school of His love.
The carrying of our crosses is also an invitation to awaken in us a deeper sense of solidarity with each other. When we recognise that each of us has been called to be disciples and like disciples, we all are carrying our own crosses, we do not journey alone carrying our cross. We follow and learn from Jesus, but we all have a cross that we bear and, with the advice of St Paul, we bear with one another and we forgive one another (Col 3:13).
Peace in Jesus.
Very Rev Fernando Montano is the Vicar General of the Diocese of Parramatta, Episcopal Vicar for Social Welfare and Parish Priest of St Bernadette’s Parish, Castle Hill.
This article was originally published in the 2024 Season of Creation | Spring edition of the Catholic Outlook Magazine. You can read the digital version here or pick up a copy in your local parish.
