FEAST OF THE EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS - 2021

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

We adore you, O Christ,
and we bless you;
because by your cross
you have redeemed the world.

PHILIPPIANS 2:6-11

My Soul's Beloved,

There is no greater example of perfect love than the love that You have shown us by becoming like us even though You are God. What sublime humility that You would become like Your creatures, that You would clothe Yourself in frail, weak, human flesh despite the fact that You are all-powerful, all-mighty, and eternal. 

We are proud, vain, silly, frivolous, we look down contemptuously on each other making divisions and differences among us and exaggerating those differences whether they be based on culture, skin tone, our beliefs, the country in which we were born, our language, and even divisions among peoples in a nation based on caste and creed. 

Nothing is more pleasing to God than genuine humility. We are truly humble, when we recognize our nothingness before You knowing all we have is a gift, and when we are given much we are duty-bound to share what we have received so no one will have too much and no one will have too little but all will receive as much as they need and will be satisfied.

God was and is humble - this is why pride is abhorrent to You. We are invited to grow in self-giving, self-emptying love, it is the kind of love that You demonstrated on the Cross. God the Father willed that You become one who was like us for only then could You, the Sinless One, make reparation for the sins of the whole world. 

You took the most dreaded instrument of torture and shame, transformed it, and You raised it up to become the Sign of our Salvation. 

Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

PSALM 78:1-2,34-38 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

We deserve the wrath of God. We deserve to be annihilated.
We court death in every conceivable way by the choices we make and we deserve to get what we clamor for. Eternal death was our lot after the fall of Adam and Eve, but God would not let death have the final word, instead, He sent us HIS ETERNAL WORD, made flesh, to dwell among us, to teach us, to show us the Way back to the Father's house, to redeem us and fling the gate of heaven wide open for all who believe in You to enter.

You make known to us all that the Father desired us to know. You did not leave us orphans but established Your Church, leaving a visible head in Peter and his successors. You gave us Your Mother so she could plead for her sinful children as only a mother can. 

From the Rock flows streams of living water through the perennial graces of the Sacraments You instituted. We are built on the firm foundation of the Apostles and their successors. The Church keeps alive in her memory and hands down to all her children faithfully, all that You did, all You said and everything You taught.  

Because of the work of salvation, You wrought for us on the Cross, Beloved, we can draw on God's unfailing kindness, compassion, and love for You made reparation and atonement for each one of our sins by Your life, passion, death, and resurrection. You crushed the head of Satan and death no longer holds terror for us for now it is only a doorway to new life in You. Thank You.

JOHN 3:13-17 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

This sentence can captivate us our whole life as we meditate on what it means for us, 

‘No one has gone up to heaven
except the one who came down from heaven.'

What manner of love is this that asked His own firstborn to die in order to save us, worthless creatures, from eternal death? Despite doing so we are still rebellious, we are willful, we are disobedient, we continue to chase the things that bring death instead of choosing life and all that choosing life entails.

You told Nicodemus the kind of death that the Father had destined for You so that the foreshadowing of the Cross in the desert when Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, would be fulfilled when the Son of Man was lifted up between heaven and earth, drawing all our iniquities upon and into Yourself, and making atonement for our sins.

This is why there can be no salvation outside You. If we desire eternal life we must believe in You. What God did for us can never be in vain, not for one single soul, for 

God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son,

so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost
but may have eternal life.

The Father sent You, His Son, into the world, not to condemn us but through You to save it. This is why the mission entrusted to us at our baptism cannot be taken lightly. Too great a price was paid for it to be in vain. Help us, Lord, to save souls so no one is condemned to eternal death.