Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Feast of the Exultation of the Holy Cross

(Numbers 4b-9; Philippians 2:6-11; John 3:13-17)

Stauros is the word for cross in Greek.  In New Testament usage the word means only a stake in the ground.  Where the gospels say that Jesus carries his cross (with the help of Simon in Matthew, Mark, and Luke), readers should imagine the crossbeam that will be attached to the stake.  The stake with crossbeam has the form of an elongated “t” in the popular imagination because Matthew’s gospel mentions that the sign identifying Jesus was placed above his head.

This shape has been given significance.  It marks transcendence.  The life of Jesus and, by reason of today’s gospel passage, those who believe in him are not limited to the horizons of natural life.  Their destinies reach beyond the natural world in the eternities of the heavens.  Of course, this is represented by the vertical line shooting beyond the horizontal line.  Interestingly, this image of transcendence is distorted in the swastika which bends the cross on itself to signify no eternal destiny.

The cross itself merits meditation which might be considered the purpose of today’s feast.  But Catholics generally think of the cross with the corpus of Jesus attached.  His passion and death seals the meaning of the cross.  He is God, the eternal Son of the Father, who twice humbled himself – in the Incarnation and the Crucifixion – so that we might live with him in eternal happiness.