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I’ve always liked to refer to today’s feast, The Exaltation, or Triumph, of the Holy Cross, as a “mini-Easter” because we are reminded of the victory that the Cross brought about, Its triumph, over sin and death when Christ rose from the dead. It’s strange to think of something so cruel and torturous being able to bring about good, but it reminds us that God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. When we realize that if God can bring so much good and open the door to our salvation from Jesus’s own Cross, then He can bring something good out of any of the crosses in our daily lives, we can begin to really embrace and exalt our own crosses and it fills us with hope that things will work out for our good in the end, which is what God wants,
St. John of the Cross said “Do not seek Christ without the Cross,” and indeed we cannot find Him without finding the Cross. But the Cross always gives way to the Resurrection, and so in our daily lives we must remember that even if we don’t find rest in this life, we will find it in eternity with God and experience never ending happiness. We must only consent to uniting our daily crosses to Jesus’s Cross and suffering alongside Him in reparation for our sins. This feast brings us the hope and joy of Easter as we are reminded that Christ triumphed by the wood of the Cross and so we too can triumph and end up in heaven with Him through the carrying of our own crosses.
Happy Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross! May we continue to ask for the grace to carry our crosses and suffer well.
Emily Berns has been a Catholic writer and blogger for the past few years. She has a B.A. in Communications from the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. Her blog, Lumen Fidei Ministries, can be found at http://www.lumenfideiministries.com.
