14 Sept 2017

14th September - Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Homily for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Fr Martin Browne OSB
Glenstal Abbey
14th September 2017




On Good Friday each year, after we have listened to the account of the Lord’s Passion according to John and prayed for the needs of the whole world, the Holy Cross is carried through the church. It is unveiled in stages. All are invited to come and adore. And then that is what we do. One by one… What some traditions used to call ‘creeping to the Cross’… Genuflecting… Kissing the Cross. … Or simply touching it with our hands or our foreheads. It’s solemn and slow. Identifying with Christ in his sufferings and joining our sorrows to his in a special and very holy ‘communion’.

Yet, in the midst of our meditations on the sufferings of Christ, our hearts are turned to praise. In one of the oldest of all Christian acclamations we cry, in Greek: ‘Hagios o Theos! Hagios ischyros! Hagios athanatos, eleison imas!’ (‘Holy God! Holy Mighty One! Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us!’) Even as we mourn with him, we praise the One who was lifted up for our salvation. We praise him because we recognise that because the Son of Man was lifted up, we who believe in him have eternal life.

And that is the tone of today’s celebration too. The opening chant said that ‘We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ’. And that is what we do. We ‘glory’ in the Cross, not because we have some fixation with misery and torture. We ‘glory’ in the Cross, not because we are stuck at Christ’s death and aren’t able to appreciate his Resurrection. No. We ‘glory’ in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ because in him ‘is our salvation, life and resurrection, and through [him] we are saved and delivered’.

St Ephrem said that the ‘suffering of the Gracious One is the key of his treasures’. The Wood of the Cross is the real Tree of Knowledge. It is the Tree of Life that overcomes the tree of Adam’s sin in Eden. As we sing on Good Friday: ‘By the wood of a tree we were made slaves, and by the Holy Cross we have been set free. The fruit of the tree ensnared us; the Son of God redeemed us.’

Similarly, Byzantine Christians sing today: ‘He who deceived Adam by a Tree is caught by the lure of the Cross. .. It was fitting that the Tree should be healed by a Tree’.

And so we ‘glory’ in the Cross. We celebrate it. We sing its praises. We even address it directly – Ave Crux, spes unica! (‘Hail, O Cross, our only hope!’) We lift it up – exalt it – not only believing, but knowing, that all who look on it in faith, will live. On this day our brothers and sisters of the Byzantine Churches lift up the Cross to each of the four cardinal points, singing ‘Kyrie eleison’ (‘Lord, have mercy’) a hundred times over each time. They recognise that the Cross is healing not just for the pious few gathered to worship, but for the whole earth and the entire cosmos. It is, to quote St Ephrem again, ‘the great key by which the treasures of mercies are opened’.

Today the Cross is lifted high and the world is sanctified. For you, O Christ, who are enthroned with the Father and the Holy Spirit, have stretched your arms upon it and have drawn the world to the knowledge of God! Make us, who have placed our trust in you, worthy of your divine glory.

Hail, O Cross, our only hope!

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