{"id":7331,"date":"2014-09-14T14:10:15","date_gmt":"2014-09-14T18:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/?p=7331"},"modified":"2014-09-14T14:10:15","modified_gmt":"2014-09-14T18:10:15","slug":"the-cross-of-christ-our-only-hope-exaltation-of-the-cross-september-14-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/the-cross-of-christ-our-only-hope-exaltation-of-the-cross-september-14-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cross of Christ, our Only Hope, Exaltation of the Cross, September 14, 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fr. Roger J. Landry
\nSt. Bernadette Parish, Fall River, MA
\nFeast of the Exaltation of the Cross
\nSeptember 14, 2014
\nNum 21:4-9, Ps 78, Phil 2:6-11, Jn 3:13-17<\/p>\n

To listen to an audio recording of this homily,\u00a0please click below:\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The following text guided the homily:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Consciously living a Cruciform Life<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today we celebrate what Saint John Paul II used to call the<\/em> symbol of Christianity. Most of us would have marked ourselves with it upon entering the Church. We began Mass with it. We\u2019ll end Mass with it. We start almost every time of prayer with it. Probably every one of our bedrooms and dining rooms has one in it. All types of people wear it around their necks, from the Pope, to teenage pop stars, to newly baptized babies. The priest holds his arms in the shape of it during the Eucharistic prayer. And it is the center and focal point of every Catholic Church. We are talking about the Cross. The Cross is the greatest summary of our faith. St. Francis of Assisi used to call it his \u201cbook,\u201d where he learned all of his wisdom. The Cross is also the key that opens the doors of heaven. St. Rose of Lima, the first saint of the Americas, said, \u201cApart from the Cross, there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.\u201d If we wish to get to eternal life with God, we must climb up with Jesus by means of the Cross. We celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross on September 14, because this is the day in 335 when the relics of the true Cross that had been miraculously rediscovered nine years earlier were brought outside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem for public veneration. Because September 14 falls on a Sunday on average only once every seven years, only daily communicants regularly celebrate this feast liturgically. But we\u2019re all called to celebrate this feast existentially, allowing its meaning to penetrate our daily life. In order to do so, however, we first need to grasp better the shocking aspect of what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

The Shock of the Cross\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

To non-believers, to celebrate the feast of the Cross makes no sense at all. It is sheer lunacy. To those who don\u2019t believe, the Cross is exclusively a symbol of pain and horrible death. Crucifixion was the worst and most cruel end imaginable in the ancient world. The modern day equivalent would be the electric chair. To celebrate or \u201cexalt\u201d the Cross would be akin to our \u201clifting up the electric chair\u201d in jubilation. To center every Church with an image of Christ\u2019s suffering on the Cross would be similar to constructing a place of worship in which one would put a gruesome image of someone convulsing and dying in an electric chair or placing a sculpture of someone baying and broiling at being burned at the stake. We\u2019ve become so used to seeing the Cross that we\u2019ve become somewhat anaesthetized to the normal shock that should be any person\u2019s first reaction to it and we need to recover a little of the initial human horror we should have before the Cross.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a story of a young boy who was a huge troublemaker in school from the time he was in kindergarten. He had been expelled from several public schools for bad behavior. His parents were at their wits\u2019 end. Even though they weren\u2019t Christian and didn\u2019t understand anything about Christianity, they enrolled their son at the Catholic elementary school in town as the last resort. Both the parents and the religious sisters who ran the school were expecting discipline problems, but strangely none came. After about a month in which their son had been acting like an angel in school, his mother and father told them that they were really happy at how well behaved he was and how well he was doing with all his school work. With a smile they asked him if he would tell them what had brought about this positive change in him. \u201cAs soon as I got into the first class,\u201d he told them, \u201cI looked up and on top of the blackboard, they put this statue of a man stripped to his underwear and nailed to two-by-fours. I knew that that at this school they don\u2019t fool around and I didn\u2019t want to misbehave and become the next person for that to happen to!\u201d Sometimes we\u2019ve lost this sense of what someone looking at the Cross for the first time should think.<\/p>\n

This is one reason why St. Paul wrote that Christ on the Cross is \u201ca stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.\u201d The pagans used to mock the early Christians for worshipping someone who was killed on the Cross, who suffered such a horrible, ignoble end. Because that derision was still happening even centuries after his death, many of the first Christians were somewhat embarrassed by the Cross and didn\u2019t use it as a popular Christian symbol until the 300s. Today, there are still some Christians who are embarrassed by the Cross. We see it in those Catholic schools and universities who have removed the Cross from classrooms lest anyone be \u201coffended.\u201d We\u2019ve seen it in Catholic hospitals who have removed them from patients\u2019 rooms even though in the hospital people need to derive meaning from their sufferings from uniting them to Christ\u2019s. We\u2019ve seen them in various \u201cmodern\u201d Catholic parishes that, instead of putting up a Crucifix in the sanctuary as is required in every Church, they erect an image of the Risen Jesus, as if that \u201cbook\u201d of St. Francis no longer had anything to teach. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I love celebrating Jesus\u2019 resurrection, too, but there\u2019s a reason why the Church requires a Crucifix instead of a sculpture of the Resurrected Jesus: it\u2019s because the Risen Jesus is a sign of the fact of his triumph over sin and death but a Crucifix is the image of his unbelievable love for us.<\/p>\n

The Cross’ true message<\/b><\/p>\n

The Cross, for believers, is not so much a symbol of pain, but rather of the Love that made even that much suffering worth it. Jesus said during the Last Supper, \u201cNo one has any greater love than to lay down his life for his friends\u201d and that\u2019s precisely what Jesus as our Good Shepherd did when he gave his own life on the Cross so that we, might live. The Cross is a picture not principally of agonizing suffering but of this mind-blowing love of God for us. St. Paul \u2014 after he stated that the Cross is a scandal to the Jews and a folly to everyone else \u2014 declared that \u201cto those who are called, the Crucified Christ is the \u2018power of God and the wisdom of God.\u2019\u201d Christ on the cross manifests the power of Christ\u2019s love and the wisdom of God\u2019s plan of salvation.<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s Gospel, St. John tells us, \u201cGod so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.\u201d As one great mystic said, each of Jesus\u2019s five wounds are like a pair of lips saying, \u201cI love you this much!\u201d God\u2019s love was so great that he was willing to bear such torture and death for each of us. St. Paul tells us in the second reading that even though Jesus was God, \u201che didn\u2019t deem equality with God something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave\u2026\u00a0And being born in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient even unto death, death on a Cross.\u201d The Cross is the great sign of God\u2019s humility. Real love is willing to do anything for the beloved, and God was willing not just to come down from heaven and take on our human nature, but to allow those he created, those he was about to redeem, to torture, abuse and kill him in order to save them and us. Jesus was willing out of love to undergo everything we might undergo as human beings, even worse. Whatever pain we might suffer, Christ suffered more. Whatever injustice we might bear, Christ bore it before us. Whatever loneliness we experience, Jesus felt it, too. This is what led the writer of the Letter of the Hebrews to exclaim one of the most consoling truths in all of Sacred Scripture: \u201cWe do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tested in every way that we are, yet never sinned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pope Francis summarized both the shock and the saving love of the Cross in his Angelus meditation earlier this morning in St. Peter\u2019s Square. He asked, \u201cWhy was the Cross necessary?,\u201d and answered, \u201cbecause of the gravity of the evil we were enslaved to. The Cross of Jesus expresses two things: all the negative strength of evil, and all gentle omnipotence of the mercy of God. The Cross seems to declare the failure of Jesus, but in reality it marks his victory. On Calvary, those who mocked him would say to him: \u2018If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross\u2019 (cf. Mt. 27,40). But the opposite was true: precisely because he was the Son of God, Jesus was there, on the cross, faithful to the end to the loving plan of the Father. It is precisely this reason why God \u2018exalted\u2019 Jesus (Phil. 2,9), conferring on Him a universal kingship.\u201d Pope Francis then described how we should prayerfully look at Jesus on the Cross. \u201cWhat do we see, then, when we turn our gaze towards the Cross where Jesus was nailed? We contemplate the sign of the infinite love of God for each and every one of us and the roots of our salvation. From that Cross flows the mercy of the Father who embraces the whole world. Through the cross of Christ, evil is overcome, death is defeated, life is given to us, hope is restored.\u201d<\/p>\n

Embracing the Cross<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the reason why the Church gives us this Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross is not just so that look at the Cross physically and ponder its meaning spiritually. It\u2019s not so that we remain stunned at beholding the One we have pierced. When we truly confront the reality of the Cross, we cannot remain a detached bystander. On Good Friday, as you know, we all process up the nave humbly without shoes, genuflect and venerate the Cross with a kiss. In order truly to venerate the Cross, however, we need to do more than just kiss it. We need to embrace<\/em> it as a way of life. That\u2019s what Jesus clearly wants<\/em> us to do and calls<\/em> us to do. He never said to us, \u201cI\u2019m taking up the Cross so that you don\u2019t have to.\u201d Rather he said, as we heard two weeks ago, \u201cIf you wish to be my disciple, you must deny yourself, pick up your Cross every day, and follow me\u201d and \u201cwhoever does not pick up the Cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.\u201d We\u2019re here because we want to be the disciples of the Lord. We want to follow him all the way to heaven. But to do this, we need to follow him to Calvary; we need to walk the Way of the Cross. As St. Rose of Lima told us earlier, there is no other ladder to heaven but the ladder of the Cross. To be a disciple means to embrace the Cross.<\/p>\n

To embrace the way of the Cross means first to forsake the way of sin because we see what our sins have done. In today\u2019s first reading, after the Jews were unfaithful in the desert, God sent among them poisonous saraph serpents, which led the Israelites to remember that just like Adam and Eve had gone the way of sin by means of the machinations of the devil in the disguise of a serpent, so, too, they had forsaken the Lord. The people turned to Moses to intercede for them with God to save their lives. Moses prayed and God had him make a bronze serpent and mount it on a pole, saying that whoever looked at this serpent on a pole will live. They were going to have to face-up to what was killing them, that they had chosen to follow the way of sin, and after having acknowledged that and having turn prayerfully to God for forgiveness they would be saved. That was a prophetic act to what would happen with Jesus on the Cross. Jesus said in today\u2019s Gospel, \u201cJust as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.\u201d Just as with the snake bitten Israelites in the desert, so we have been bitten by the poison of sin, we have negotiated with the ancient serpent and chosen against God. We need to come face-to-face with our own sins, seeing what they did to Jesus, and then with real contrition turn to the Lord for salvation. We do this not just as an antidote to the poison in the moment of suffering, but to lead us through the desert of life all the way to the eternal repose. To embrace the way of the Cross means to reject the life of sin and commit ourselves to following the life of grace.<\/p>\n

The second thing that embracing the Cross means is that it commits us to the path of self-sacrificial love. Many Catholics when they hear Jesus\u2019 command to deny ourselves, pick up our Cross and follow Jesus think that it means \u201coffering up\u201d their hardships, their difficulties, their pain, and bearing with peaceful resignation the contradictions of the day. That is part of it, but, actually, a small part of it. To embrace the Cross means to kiss Christ\u2019s love and to imitate it. Jesus said, in the greatest of all commandments, \u201cLove one another as I have loved you.\u201d Picking up our Cross and following the Lord means following him down the path of selfless self-giving love. Jesus, in fact, gives us the Cross so that we, like him, might die<\/em> on it, die to ourselves for others, so that he might live fully in us and love others through us. That point is a crucial one, so I\u2019ll repeat it: the Lord gave us the Cross so that we might die to ourselves on it and allow him to live in us so that his self-sacrificial love might reign in us<\/em>. This is exactly what St. Paul pointed to when he wrote to the Galatians, \u201cI have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.\u201d We want Christ to live in us and Christ himself wants to live in us, but the only way that happens is to be crucified with him through the gift of the Cross. The most beautiful reality is that when we do this, we not only abide in Christ and he in us \u2014\u00a0and share in the fullness of salvation \u2014 but we become co-redeemers with Christ. St. Paul was alluding to this reality when he said to the first Christians in Colossae, \u201cIn my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ\u2019s sufferings for the sake of his body, that is, the church.\u201d Christ\u2019s sacrifice on the Cross \u2014 which saved the world \u2014 always intended to be united to our sacrifices united with him on the Cross. That\u2019s what occurs when we really live as his disciples, picking up our Crosses every day, dying to ourselves on them, and allowing the Risen Christ to live in us and to unite ourselves to his redemptive work.<\/p>\n

Exalting the Cross each day<\/strong><\/p>\n

To some this might seem like a new mystery or something too theologically deep, but it is a reality that we have been living<\/em> for as long as we have been Catholic. It is a reality that began on the day we were baptized, when we were marked by the priest, our parents and our godparents with the Sign of the Cross and then sacramentally died in Christ and he rose from the dead within us. The Christian life is a school of the Cross from our first day as a Christian; the Cross of Jesus that we carry within is at the heart of the mystery of God\u2019s love and of our faith. This is why when we enter Church we unite three gestures \u2014 holy water, the renewal of our baptism; the sign of the Cross; and the calling upon our Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Every time we make that gesture, and every time we teach it to children, grandchildren, godchildren and others, we should call to mind how all three go together: that in baptism, we have died with Christ on the Cross, but raised into the divine life of the Trinity, the communion of three persons in love. The Cross is the supreme symbol of this triune love.<\/p>\n

In the bulletin this week, I\u2019ve printed a reflection on the importance of praying the Sign of the Cross we make so many times over the course of a day. It focuses on how St. Bernadette was taught how to pray the Sign of the Cross well from the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lourdes and how our patroness never ceased to teach everyone, including fellow religious sisters, that same lesson. The first time our patroness saw our Lady in the Grotto of Massabielle, on February 11, 1848, she tried to make the Sign of the Cross just in case the image she was seeing was of the devil, but she was prevented. He had was paralyzed and she couldn\u2019t move it, something that made her even more afraid. But once the \u201cVision\u201d had made the Sign of the Cross, she tried again and she could do it and she became calm. On subsequent appearances, St. Bernadette would make the Sign of the Cross together with Mary and tried to imitate precisely how Mary made it with profound reverence and recollection. After the apparitions, when Bernadette was subjected to the endless line of interviews from people seeking to get her to divulge all that Mary had revealed to her, she would often become reticent about many of the details. She would readily respond, however, when her interrogators asked her to show them how Our Lady demonstrated to make the Sign of the Cross. When she became a Sister of Charity of Nevers, St. Bernadette continued to make the Sign of the Cross as Mary had taught her. It often brought other sisters, accustomed to making the Sign of the Cross routinely and without much thought, to conversion. One sister said, \u201cShe couldn\u2019t stand to see others make it poorly. One day, when I had made it very negligently, she asked me if I had hurt my arm or was in a hurry.\u201d St. Bernadette sought to make the Sign of the Cross as she had witnessed the Blessed Mother make it: slowly, in a sweeping gesture, raising her right hand so that her fingers touched to the very top of her forehead, then lowering her hands to touch her waist, and then slowly touching the extreme of her left shoulder followed by her right. She did so entrusting herself to the Three Persons of the Trinity Whose name she would invoke, while opening herself up to the infinite graces Christ gained for us on the Cross and committing herself to embrace her daily Cross and follow Christ as a new Simon of Cyrene.<\/p>\n

When Pope Benedict went to Lourdes in 2008 for the 150th anniversary of the apparitions, he spoke about what St. Bernadette teaches us all about this feast and how we live it every time we make this most distinctive Christian gesture. \u201cAt Lourdes, in the school of Mary,\u201d Pope Benedict said, \u201cpilgrims learn to consider the Cross in their own lives in the light of the glorious cross of Christ. In appearing to Bernadette, the first gesture of Mary was precisely the Sign of the Cross, in silence and without words. And Bernadette imitated her in making also the Sign of the Cross with a trembling hand. Thus, the Virgin gave a first initiation into the essence of Christianity: the Sign of the Cross is the summit of our faith, and in making it with an attentive heart, we enter into the fullness of the mystery of our salvation.\u201d<\/p>\n

If St. Bernadette were here today to teach us the path to heaven, she would seek to teach us how to enter into the Triumph of the Cross several times a day by praying devoutly this most characteristic of all Christian gestures. When a novice, a young sister, asked her what she needed to do to go to heaven, St. Bernadette without hesitation replied, \u201cMake the Sign of the Cross well. That in itself is already a great deal.\u201d She wants us to make it a big deal, to pray it with all our mind, heart, soul and strength, because when we do, we are entering into the heart of our faith and the Christian life, being fortified to receive the graces Jesus won for us on the Cross and strengthening our resolve to make our whole life a sign of the Cross.<\/p>\n

Finding our Hope in the Cross<\/strong><\/p>\n

The early Christians used to say and sing, \u201cAve, O Crux, Spes Unica<\/em>!,\u201d \u201cHail, O Cross, our Only Hope.\u201d The cross is our only hope in two ways. First, because without Christ\u2019s sacrificial triumph on the Cross, we would have no hope of eternal salvation; and second, because unless we pick up our Cross every day to unite ourselves to God, we have no hope of salvation either. The Cross is the ladder Jesus made to lead us upward to heaven, but it\u2019s also a ladder we must embrace and climb. The Cross is the world\u2019s greatest love story but we need to grasp that we are a central character in that romance.<\/p>\n

The message of the love of the Cross that we receive and share, we\u2019re called to proclaim from the rooftops. It\u2019s the most important message we can preach because it is the summary and essence of the Gospel. St. Paul, the greatest evangelist who ever lived, after many eloquent homilies, had a conversion. As he wrote to the Corinthians, \u201cWhen I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to preach nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.\u201d To preach Christ crucified, this incredible reality of God\u2019s love, is our common mission. The great Catholic hymn we prayed to begin our Mass today puts on our lips and in our hearts and souls how to do this: \u201cLift High the Cross, the Love of Christ proclaim, until all the world adore his holy name!\u201d And we lift it highest, we proclaim it most eloquently, when we live it most! And insofar as the vast majority of the human raise is not yet adoring Christ\u2019s holy name, we need to lift it higher and proclaim it more loudly in loving deeds than we ever have until now.<\/p>\n

The greatest way for us to be strengthened in living the mystery of the Cross is here at the Mass, in which we share live in the sacrifice of Christ that began at the Last Supper and was consummated on the Cross, when he gave his body and his blood for us and our salvation. To celebrate the Mass is to exalt the Cross, to echo Jesus\u2019 words \u201cThis is my body,\u201d \u201cThis is my blood,\u201d \u201cgiven for you.\u201d The connection between the Cross and the Mass indelibly impressed upon a priest on the day of his priestly ordination. Right after he has become a priest by the bishop\u2019s laying on of hands and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, the new priest kneels in front of his bishop, who puts in his hands the chalice and paten with bread and says: \u201cAccept from the holy people of God the gifts to be offered to him. Know what you are doing, imitate the mystery you celebrate: model your life on the mystery of the Lord’s cross.\u201d The latter part of that prayer is an instruction applicable to each of us. Know what you are doing<\/em> \u2014 we\u2019re about to enter into the greatest reality a human being can share, as we prepare to receive the fruit of the Tree of the Cross, Jesus himself. Imitate the mystery you celebrate<\/em> \u2014\u00a0which is the call to live the Eucharist, to become whom we eat, to emulate the self-giving love enfleshed in the Eucharist. And finally: model your life on the mystery of the Lord\u2019s Cross<\/em>. Today God wants to give us the help he knows we need to base our entire existence on the love we celebrate on the Cross, so that we may not only experience in this world a foretaste of Christ\u2019s victory upon this new Tree of Life, but come by his grace to be exalted together with him upon it eternally.<\/p>\n

Today at the consecration, I will hold Jesus aloft a little bit longer than normal and I would encourage you to say to Jesus what we sang for the Alleluia verse and Christians are accustomed to say throughout Lent: \u201cWe adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, for by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world!\u201d This is what we celebrate today. Ave, O Crux, Spes Unica!<\/em> Amen.<\/p>\n

The readings for today’s Mass were:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Reading 1
\nnm 21:4b-9<\/a><\/h4>\n
With their patience worn out by the journey,
\nthe people complained against God and Moses,
\n\u201cWhy have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert,
\nwhere there is no food or water?
\nWe are disgusted with this wretched food!\u201d
\nIn punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents,
\nwhich bit the people so that many of them died.
\nThen the people came to Moses and said,
\n\u201cWe have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you.
\nPray the LORD to take the serpents from us.\u201d
\nSo Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses,
\n\u201cMake a saraph and mount it on a pole,
\nand if any who have been bitten look at it, they will live.\u201d
\nMoses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole,
\nand whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent
\nlooked at the bronze serpent, he lived.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Responsorial Psalm
\nps 78:1bc-2, 34-35, 36-37, 38<\/a><\/h4>\n
R. (see 7b)\u00a0Do not forget the works of the Lord!<\/strong>
\nHearken, my people, to my teaching;
\nincline your ears to the words of my mouth.
\nI will open my mouth in a parable,
\nI will utter mysteries from of old.
\nR.\u00a0Do not forget the works of the Lord!<\/strong>
\nWhile he slew them they sought him
\nand inquired after God again,
\nRemembering that God was their rock
\nand the Most High God, their redeemer.
\nR.\u00a0Do not forget the works of the Lord!<\/strong>
\nBut they flattered him with their mouths
\nand lied to him with their tongues,
\nThough their hearts were not steadfast toward him,
\nnor were they faithful to his covenant.
\nR.\u00a0Do not forget the works of the Lord!<\/strong>
\nBut he, being merciful, forgave their sin
\nand destroyed them not;
\nOften he turned back his anger
\nand let none of his wrath be roused.
\nR.\u00a0Do not forget the works of the Lord!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reading 2
\nphil 2:6-11<\/a><\/h4>\n

Brothers and sisters:
\nChrist Jesus, though he was in the form of God,
\ndid not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
\nRather, he emptied himself,
\ntaking the form of a slave,
\ncoming in human likeness;
\nand found human in appearance,
\nhe humbled himself,
\nbecoming obedient to death,
\neven death on a cross.
\nBecause of this, God greatly exalted him
\nand bestowed on him the name
\nthat is above every name,
\nthat at the name of Jesus
\nevery knee should bend,
\nof those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
\nand every tongue confess that
\nJesus Christ is Lord,
\nto the glory of God the Father.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Gospel
\njn 3:13-17<\/a><\/h4>\n
Jesus said to Nicodemus:
\n\u201cNo one has gone up to heaven
\nexcept the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.
\nAnd just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
\nso must the Son of Man be lifted up,
\nso that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.\u201d
\nFor God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
\nso that everyone who believes in him might not perish
\nbut might have eternal life.
\nFor God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
\nbut that the world might be saved through him.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fr. Roger J. Landry St. Bernadette Parish, Fall River, MA Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross September 14, 2014 Num 21:4-9, Ps 78, Phil 2:6-11, Jn 3:13-17 To listen to an audio recording of this homily,\u00a0please click below:\u00a0   The following text guided the homily:\u00a0 Consciously living a Cruciform Life Today we celebrate what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3627,1063,3,6],"tags":[6400,1795,5971,657,6694,516,6695,6697,2558,2093,658,305,1761,1700,6696,2543,6691,6693,2856,2220,2556,5574,1423,6692],"class_list":["post-7331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2013-2014","category-audio-homily","category-homily","category-year-a","tag-ave-o-crux","tag-cross","tag-crucifix","tag-exaltation-of-the-cross","tag-folly-to-gentiles","tag-jn-313-17","tag-kiss-the-cross","tag-lift-high-the-cross","tag-lourdes","tag-moses","tag-num-214-9","tag-phil-26-11","tag-pope-benedict","tag-pope-francis","tag-priestly-ordination","tag-ps-78","tag-saraph-serpents","tag-scandal-to-jews","tag-sign-of-the-cross","tag-spes-unica","tag-st-bernadette","tag-st-john-paul-ii","tag-st-paul","tag-st-rose-of-lima"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Cross of Christ, our Only Hope, Exaltation of the Cross, September 14, 2014 - Catholic Preaching<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/the-cross-of-christ-our-only-hope-exaltation-of-the-cross-september-14-2014\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Cross of Christ, our Only Hope, Exaltation of the Cross, September 14, 2014 - Catholic Preaching\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fr. 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