14 September 2026 The Exaltation of the Holy Cross Gospel: John 3:13-17
Today is Monday of the Twenty-Fourth Week in Ordinary Time. Today, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The recently published Roman Missal tells us: the Feast commemorates the recovery of the relic of the True Cross by the Emperor Heraclius in 629, after it had been captured by the Persians; it also marks the original dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where relics of the Cross were kept, in 335. The Feast celebrates the Cross, the instrument of our salvation, and is in many ways an extension of Good Friday. The Cross is a great and powerful sign of God’s love for us — a love stronger than death — and also a daily reality in our lives: the only true path to holiness.
Today, the passage taken from the Gospel of John presents to us the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus. I would like to take this opportunity to offer some reflections.
Jesus said to Nicodemus: “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.” (Cf. John 3:13-15)
We often fall into a certain misunderstanding. For it seems to us that the “heaven” Jesus speaks of is the heaven we can see with our own eyes. When we look up at the sky, we can see the sun, the moon, and the stars; we can even see the satellites we have launched into outer space in our exploration of the deep heavens.
The heaven Jesus speaks of, however, is the dwelling place of God. The psalmist says: From the rising of the sun to its setting, may the name of the Lord be praised. The Lord is high above all nations; His glory is above the heavens. (Cf. Ps 113(112):4) The author of Proverbs tells us: “The wisdom of God says: The Lord created me, the beginning of His ways, before all else that He made, from eternity. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills existed, I was brought forth… [He was] beside Him as His craftsman, day after day, delighting Him, rejoicing always before Him, playing over the whole surface of His earth, taking delight in mankind.” (Prov 8:22-31)
We can see in today’s Gospel passage that Jesus refers to the serpent which Moses lifted up in the wilderness. The reason Moses lifted up the serpent was that the Israelites had complained against God because of food and drink, and so God sent serpents among the people, which bit and killed many Israelites. At the request of the Israelites, God commanded Moses to make a bronze serpent and set it upon a pole, so that all who looked upon it might be healed. (Cf. Num 21:6-9) Jesus uses this as a prefigurement, signifying that He too would be lifted up on the pole of the New Covenant — that is, lifted up on the Cross — and by His holy death destroy that tree which had brought sin upon our first parents and upon us mortals, and by His holy death bring life and salvation to the world.
Today, through Christ’s Baptism, we have been cleansed of our sinful defilement by the water that flowed from His sacred side upon the holy Cross; and through the anointing of joy — the Holy Spirit, whom He and the Father breathe forth together — we have become children of God. Thus, the Cross, which was once regarded by the world as shameful, has become the path to salvation; and the sin that came through the first Adam has been atoned for by the sacrifice of the second Adam upon the Cross. Therefore, the Church sings in the Liturgy of the Hours:This holy tree stands ever sublime, loftier than the cedars of Lebanon; it bears no harmful fruit, but bestows grace upon the world.
On this Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, let us lift up our prayer to God together:
O God, who willed that your Only Begotten Son should undergo the Cross to save the human race, grant, we pray, that we, who have known his mystery on earth, may merit the grace of his redemption in heaven. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
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