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Gospel Commentary – September 14, 2025
“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”
Dear brothers and sisters, peace and goodness.
From the beginning, this feast was linked to the dedication of two basilicas built in the time of Emperor Constantine: one on Calvary (Golgotha) and the other on the Resurrection. This happened on September 13, 355. On the following day, September 14, the relic of Christ’s Cross was shown to the faithful. Tradition tells us that the Cross was found on September 14. Saint Helena, Constantine’s mother, spent much time and resources in Jerusalem searching for the wood of the Cross where Jesus of Nazareth died. She found it, and those basilicas were built. The celebration of their dedication shows that the finding of the Cross was already being remembered. This is, then, one of the oldest feasts in Christianity. And it is fitting that it has the importance of a Sunday, when so many more faithful gather at the Eucharist than on any weekday feast, even the greatest ones.
We have known this since childhood. The first Christian gesture we learned was to make the sign of the cross. Later, in catechism, we learned the question: “What is the sign of a Christian?” And the answer was: “The sign of the Christian is the holy Cross.” With this sign we begin and end every Eucharist.
At first sight, it seems strange to admire or exalt the cross. We know it was an instrument of torture, reserved for criminals and rebels. It was the cruelest punishment of all. No Roman citizen could be condemned to it; it was reserved for slaves and political enemies. We can easily imagine the cruelty of such a death and the suffering it brought to its victims. Jesus, who foresaw this death as his own, must have felt deep fear and horror at it.
But for us, this rough wood speaks of much more. We do not look at just any cross, an empty cross, but at the cross where Jesus was nailed. That cross speaks to us of his faithfulness to his mission, even unto death. And this shows us something decisive: his mission was not just a whim or a personal idea. It was not only the expression of a joyful temperament or a generous heart. Nobody risks so much just for a personal impulse.
We need to go deeper, into Jesus’ own heart. He understood his life and ministry as a mission he had received from God, a mission he could not betray. That is why he was willing to pay the greatest price, to face the most terrible death. He accepted it only because he knew he was sent by the Father, and because he trusted completely in Him.
This cross speaks to us of God’s love: “God 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.” The cross invites us to look at Jesus and discover more of God’s love. Like the Israelites who looked at the bronze serpent lifted up by Moses, we are called to lift our eyes to the Crucified One. There we discover the depth of Jesus’ love for us, and the seriousness of God’s love. This contemplation should move us to conversion.
Saint Paul also gives us a beautiful description: Jesus “humbled himself, even to death, and death on a cross.” Paul’s words remind us how degrading the cross was for Jews and Greeks alike. And yet, precisely there, God lifted up his Son above all things. Just as Moses raised the serpent in the desert, the Father raises Jesus on the cross and in the Resurrection. This is how salvation comes to us.
The cross, as we know, is also the name we give to our trials: contradictions, sickness, poverty, being misunderstood, being betrayed by friends, gossip, slander, injustice, being mocked for being Christian, for going to Mass, for praying the rosary. All of these are real hardships. But for the Christian, life is not simply divided into “good fortune” and “bad fortune.” For us, everything can be a blessing, if we unite it to the Cross of Christ, offering it for the forgiveness of our sins and those of the whole world. This is how the cross lifts us up and gives us eternal life.
This is the Christian’s joy. The non-believer, even if he is rich, healthy, and surrounded by pleasures, lacks the deepest meaning of life. And when suffering comes, as it always does, his joy is broken, because he cannot find meaning in it. For us, the sign of the Christian is the holy Cross, and that is why our joy is in the Cross. Today the Church celebrates this feast with a joy worthy of being proclaimed everywhere.
Today we look especially at the cross. We feel the pain of our brothers and sisters who still suffer unjustly. We commit ourselves to work so that no one will ever again be killed on a cross, in any of its forms. We mourn the violence that continues under so many excuses. But we keep our eyes on the cross, because in it we find hope: hope to keep proclaiming, like Jesus, the Good News of the Kingdom; hope that it is possible to live differently, in peace and fraternity. And we continue to heal wounds, to reconcile, to show mercy—because that is what it means to be disciples of Jesus, the one who died on the cross and who rose again.
Your brother in faith,