Triumph of the Cross

 

Feast of the Triumph of the Cross

September 14, 2025

The Meaning of the Cross

 

            Today’s Feast celebrates the day that the Cross of Christ was found. After Jesus’ death, the Romans threw His cross into a giant pit with hundreds of other crosses, and then filled in the pit with dirt. When Christianity became legal under Emperor Constantine in 313 AD, Constantine’s mother, St. Helen, traveled to Jerusalem to search for relics of Christ’s Passion. Her excavations uncovered the pit, but no one knew which was the Cross of Christ until they found a man with leprosy and had him touch each beam of wood. When he touched one specific cross, he was miraculously cured, showing this was the Cross of Christ. Today’s feast celebrates that great finding.

            But more than a dusty relic from the past, the Cross of Jesus Christ is the very cornerstone of our Faith. Without the Cross, there is no Savior, no mercy, no Eucharist. Without the Cross, Heaven remains closed, our lives remain meaningless, we die in our sin. The Cross is the meeting-place between God and humanity; between His love and our misery; a stark visual of the horror of sin and the unfathomable depths of mercy.

            Today I want to mention four effects of the Cross, and why it is truly the central piece of Christianity.

            First, the Cross paid back the debt that we owed God, but could not pay. The story goes that a dying man saw the devil holding a list of all his sins. What a list it was – listing each sin in lurid, graphic detail! The devil said, “Ah, what good deeds can undo all of this? Where are your virtues? You are mine forever!” But the man, a believer in Christ, replied, “Ah, you have shown me only one side of the page – the side with the debts. But turn the page over and you will see the credits – the Cross of Christ, which more than paid for all my sins.” At the mention of the Cross, the Evil One vanished.

            Something similar actually happened to a saint. St. Genesius, a Roman actor who had a conversion on his deathbed, had a vision of an angel holding a book of his sins. What a tremendous book it was! But as he was baptized, he saw the angel erasing the sins, as the water of baptism, given cleansing power through the Cross, was able to erase all the evil he had done!

            Firefighters out West will often prevent forest fires by actually burning part of the ground in a controlled way. They say that “fire cannot come where fire has already been.” A perfect analogy of the Cross – God’s judgment cannot come where His judgment has already been. And since God has seen it fit to enact His punishment upon His Son, then those who live in the shadow of the Cross have confidence that His punishment will not fall upon us, but only mercy!

            Second, the Cross showed us the depths of God’s love for us. One time several drunk college students were stumbling across their campus when they came across the chapel. One student, seeing the cross on the top, cried out, “Look, O mathematicians, at God’s plus sign!” This comment lodged in the mind of one of the other students, who was troubled by it for days. God’s plus sign – God plus us – the unity between two variables – God and us together. He was converted when he realized that the Cross is indeed the plus sign of God – it is the meeting place of the vertical (reaching out to God) and the horizontal (our humanity). There, the two lines converge, and there, God and humanity converge.

            In every ancient world religion, priests spent centuries spilling animal blood in the hope of appeasing Almighty God. But at the Cross, God spills His own Blood, in the hopes of winning our hearts and purchasing our salvation. Can there be any greater love? If you wonder if God loves you, if your life has any value, if you are precious in His sight, look at the Cross and behold a God who would rather die than spend eternity without you.

            Third, the Cross teaches us how to love. The world says that love is shaped like a heart; Jesus shows us that love is shaped like the Cross. He says we must love one another as He has loved us. So when we’re struggling to love our difficult spouse, the Cross is our answer. When our child is getting on our last nerve, we take strength in the Cross. When we are at our wits end taking care of our elderly parents, we see that Christ loved to the end and beyond. Not only is the Cross our example, the Cross is our strength – Crucified Lord, make my heart like unto Thine!

            Finally, the Cross redeems suffering and death. We can run from it, take medicine to avoid it, or try to mask it with pleasures, but all of us will encounter suffering and death. The Cross, however, has the power to redeem it and sanctify it. When we unite our sufferings to those of the Cross, we become privileged to participate in Christ’s saving action, and our sufferings become acts of love. Many great saints were made by embracing suffering!

            For a recent example, consider Bl. Benedetta Porro. She was an Italian saint born in the 1930s, who seemed destined for suffering. She contracted polio at only three months old, had recurring bronchitis, and was crippled. As a teen, she began to lose her hearing, and was soon diagnosed with a rare disease where she would lose all five senses and become paralyzed. You’d think that someone like this would give up, retreat to her room and watch TV all day, and maybe grow bitter and angry at fate, but not Benedetta. She was a voracious reader, enrolled in medical school (although unable to finish due to her illness), kept up many correspondences with people, and took several pilgrimages to holy sites. Even as her illness got so progressively bad that she was unable to move and could only move one hand, she kept her spirit of joy and peace.

            Toward the end of her life she said, “I do not lack hope. I know that at the end of the road, Jesus is waiting for me … I have discovered that God exists, that He is love, faithfulness, joy, certitude, to the end of the ages. My days are not easy. They are hard. But sweet because Jesus is with me.” This incredible hope is only possible because of the Cross – her sufferings could be offered to Jesus as a sweet gift of love, since she was following a Savior who suffered first out of love for her.

            My friends, the Cross is everything. I hope that the Cross hangs in your homes and your bedrooms; that you perhaps wear a Cross around your neck; and that you look upon it often. For there, upon the Cross, hangs our Love, our Hope, and our Salvation.