Numbers 21:4b-9
Philippians 2:6-11
John 3:13-17

This Sunday we honor in a special way the holy cross. The cross is the sign of our salvation because of the immeasurable love of God for us. The readings focus on the themes of salvation through faith in a symbol of God’s power, compassion and great love for us.

In the first reading, the bronze serpent in the desert, through God’s favor and power, saved the people from the poisonous bite of the saraph serpents. In Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, we are reminded of Jesus’ great sacrifice for us, “being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross,”

The crucifix or cross is our most common and sublime object of religious devotion. It is not a source of horror or shame for us. On the contrary, it is the sign of our salvation through the immeasurable love of God for us.

As disciple, we are in unity with Jesus as we faithfully carry our own crosses of suffering or discomfort. The Holy Spirit inspires and strengthens us to take up our cross together with Jesus Christ, offering our pain and/or discomfort for love of God and one another. The old prayer “Offer it up.” has value. If I have a splitting headache, offering my pain for the need of someone else, the suffering takes on value. I still may have the headache whether I offer it up or not. Why not consciously be in union with the suffering of Jesus.

I am making a request to each reader of this blog. Please join the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland in our efforts to have an ending to the death penalty in the state of Ohio. In our world today, it is easy to take the cross for granted. We forget how radical a symbol it is. Think of the modern means of execution—less visibly barbaric, but maybe because of that all the more dehumanizing. It’s easier to accept the state killing someone in our name when we aren’t confronted directly with that person’s pain. We glory in the cross of Jesus, but can you imagine glorying in the electric chair, or fatal injection or firing squad?

Yet that is precisely what we are asked to do. We are asked to boast—be proud of an instrument of torture and death, even with the fact that Jesus whom we worship was subject to it. What does this tell us about Jesus, and what does it tell us about being a Christian and how we are called to be faithful disciples?

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life… For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (Jn 3, 14-21).

How can you become more conscious of the importance of the cross each time you make the sign of the cross?

Action: Join our Ursuline efforts to end the death penalty.