You won’t need look far before seeing someone wearing a cross, either as pendant on their necklaces or as pinstripe on the lapel or even as ring in their finger (as I’m wearing one). The cross has gained such power that countries like Switzerland, Austria, Greece, Norway, New Zealand, Finland, Denmark, and Fiji, to name a few, adopted it as part of their national symbols, and the Geneva Convention adopted it as the symbol for the Red Cross. In doing so, it associates the symbol with healing, medical services, equipment, and personnel.
But it’s always someone else’s cross – Jesus’ own cross – that we wear. None of us would like to wear his or her own cross, or exalt in it. Despite its wide usage, the cross is perhaps what is most hated, abhorred, and scorned in the world. No one wants to entertain the idea of the cross in its various manifestations – sickness, suffering, and death. After she was diagnosed with colon cancer, an 81-year-old woman wanted her priest to explain why God was punishing her. The priest told her about a 27-year-old friend with the same diagnosis who told him that it was his cross, which he was happy to carry.
Today’s feast says exactly the same thing, but in a much more sublime way. “Christ Jesus,” St. Paul tells the Philippians, “Emptied himself…becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God highly exalted him” (Philippians 2:8-9a). The feast we celebrate draws its name from this scripture passage. Historically, too, it celebrates the discovery of the True Cross by Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, on September 14 in AD 320. [Legendry and historical inconsistences of the story of the finding of the true cross do not diminish the essence and spiritual import of the feast].
St. John Paul tells us that “the cross is the first letter of God’s alphabet.” God created the world with the cross in view. Without the cross, human life and history would make no sense. Whenever we experience suffering, we might curse, question, cry, point fingers, and even accuse God and others to our own detriment. We have the other option of listening to God as He points to us the cross of His own Son. We can see Christ’s hands extended to receive, embrace, and console us. We can hear Him telling us in our suffering, “I am one with you.” We would experience one of life’s mysteries where suffering and pain unite people in genuine love more than any other experience. A person’s cross shared with others, especially with the Lord, promises life, hope, and healing.
That we cannot escape the cross shouldn’t surprise anyone, especially Christians. We are baptized into it, and buried under the sign of the cross. We sign ourselves with the cross – morning, evening, before and after meals, every time we pray. Have you noticed how many times the Sign of the Cross is repeated during Mass? The cross is an inescapable part of Christian living.
Bitten by the poison of sin and suffering – just as the Israelites were bitten by the serpent in the wilderness – God presents us with the Cross of His Son as our healing remedy. Jesus told Nichodemus: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so would the Son of Man be lifted up” (John 3:14). Interestingly, the image of the serpent on a pole represents the medical profession, showing that doctors and nurses are healers, not killers (as in abortion and euthanasia).
But the wound of sin cannot be healed by medicine and psychology, no matter how advanced. Only the cross can heal us. St. Peter echoing the words of the prophet Isaiah says, “By his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5-6; I Peter 2:24). And Jesus says, “When I am lifted up, I shall draw all men to myself” (John 12:32); thus He embraces us in our sinfulness as He did those who nailed Him. In that, He shows that the cross is, according to the Venerable Fulton Sheen, the tree that bathes with perfume even the axe that cuts it.
Fr. Chukwudi Jo Okonkwo