Today’s feast goes back to September 13 of the year 335, when the basilica built by Emperor Constantine was dedicated in Jerusalem, next to Calvary and near the Lord’s tomb. Since then, on the day following this anniversary, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross has been celebrated: the Cross, once an instrument of death, has become a source of life. In the Cross of Jesus, death has been conquered, and the path of resurrection and life has been opened forever.
The Cross sums up the whole theology of God, the mystery of salvation in Christ, and the Christian life. It shows us a God who is transcendent yet close; a God who chose to overcome evil through his own suffering; a Christ who, in his Paschal mystery, gave the world reconciliation and the New Covenant between humanity and God.
The Cross enlightens our entire life. It gives us hope. It shows us the way. It assures us of Christ’s victory and calls us to follow the same way of life so as to share in the life of the Risen One.
That Cross of the incarnate Son of God also represents all the victims of history unjustly condemned. To keep it before our eyes is to continue denouncing the crosses that so many people and peoples still bear, and to remember that Jesus transformed it into the clearest sign of his solidarity with the suffering world — a solidarity that finds its fulfillment in the Resurrection.
Sr. Asunción Mitjans Gaspa
Provincia San Raimundo de Peñafort
