So we celebrate today the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
The first thing we recognize, of course, is that the Church places this a half a year
after all the celebrations of Holy Week.
So we look at the Passion and now we are reminded...
halfway through the year beyond that, so lest we forget.
We celebrate all the saints in glory and we celebrate so many beautiful things
and it might be easy to forget about what brought them there.
It is the cross.
We remember that St. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, says,
May I boast in nothing but the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ.
Not in the resurrection, not in the glorification,
in the cross. Because there is no resurrection or glorification without the cross. We have to have
sins forgiven. We have to have the enmity with Satan destroyed before we can be able to get to
heaven. So yes, the glory of the resurrection and the glorification in heaven is what we're all about.
But in this world, we are not yet glorified in case we needed to remind anyone.
This world is about the passion.
This world is about the cross.
And if all we want to do is look at the resurrection and the glorification,
we forget the very purpose for which we're here.
Yes, it is to make the choice to go to heaven, but in order to make that choice, we first
have to make the choice then to walk the rough and narrow way that is going to lead there.
that's the way that leads to Calvary. That's the way that has the cross as its
central point. So in the midst of our struggles and difficulties and
sufferings here, yes, we can look forward with hope.
But in the meantime, we also have to be united with the Lord.
So, when we listen to the words of our Lord as He speaks about His upcoming passion, He
says, now is the Prince of this world cast out.
It is through the passion that that happened.
Is it going to be any different for us?
How is Satan going to be destroyed in your life, only through uniting yourself with the
passion of the Lord?
In fact, St. Paul tells us in the first reading today that we have to have the same disposition
as Jesus, and then tells us about the humility of our blessed Lord, that he humbled himself
to take the form of a slave.
But that wasn't enough.
Then he humbled himself and was obedient even to death.
Humility is what the devil has no power over and tragically most of us are born
into this world without a whole lot of humility and then as we grew up we seem
to have even less and now that humility has to be developed. The pride has to be
crushed because the pride is Satan's stronghold.
So, we have to have that same humility that Jesus did.
And if we can have that humility, then the prince of this world is cast out.
He has no place in us.
If we are filled with pride, we may as well roll out the red carpet and say, demons welcome
here.
Come on in.
The house is yours.
And we want to escort them out of the house.
And the only way to escort them out of the house
is to have the humility.
So, if Jesus humbled himself to take the form of a slave, we first of all have to recognize
that's talking about us.
We're not something wonderful and great and high and mighty.
Yes, we are the pinnacle of God's material creation.
But we've chosen sin.
We've chosen to offend our God.
We have the form of a slave.
And so we need to see ourselves in that lowly way, not in a bad attitude way, but rather
in a truthful way, to simply recognize our sinfulness, to recognize our servitude.
And then to humble ourselves, to be obedient, to be obedient to whatever it is that God is asking of us.
Because that will be our cross, whatever it happens to be.
And it's a day-to-day thing. Our Lord wasn't just obedient to the cross.
He was obedient in every single thing that he did throughout his life.
And that's exactly what God will be asking of us.
So if we can do that, it becomes the cross for us by which we defeat Satan.
Maybe we're not going to be crucified per se, in fact most of us won't.
Look at all the saints that we have, a handful of them actually were crucified.
But most were not.
But every one of them had to be crucified with Christ, spiritually speaking.
Every one of them had to suffer with Christ.
And so do we.
but the only way that that's going to work.
is with humility and with charity.
Yeah, we can white-knuckle it through our sufferings
and what do we do while we're white-knuckling it? We complain and we whine
and we, in our pride, even come up with stupid things like
I don't deserve this or whatever. You're right, we don't. We deserve a lot worse.
But of course that's not what we mean by that.
And if we have humility we can accept, if we have humility we can be at peace, if we
have humility we can unite it with the suffering of Christ and it can be offered for the good
of others and for the glory of God.
And so again, we look at what St. Paul tells us, and that if every knee is going to bend
and every tongue in heaven on earth and under the earth is going to proclaim the glory of
our Lord, it's because of the cross.
He is God, every tongue should proclaim Him anyway, and every knee should bend.
But it was because of His humility in taking on our nature and then bringing our humanity
to the cross and being crucified for us, that's His glory.
and it will be ours too.
if we are willing to cooperate with Him, if we are willing to put the cross at the center of our life.
God has put the cross at the center of history. God has put the cross at the center of humanity.
God has put the cross as the connection between heaven and earth. It is the center of everything.
Now, we have to ask, is it the center of my life?
Is this the point of my union with Jesus?
Or do I just want the glory?
Oh, I want to be with Jesus in heaven.
but I don't want the cross.
Well, good luck getting to heaven without the cross, isn't going to work.
So, in order to be glorified with Him, we have to be crucified with Him, Scripture says.
So if we want the glory,
We need to look at the cross and we have to remember the words of our Lord because the cross is his glorification on earth.
Yes, he was glorified in heaven, but he said that he is going to be glorified, talking about his passion.
That is his greatest glory on earth.
If that's His glory and we're united with Him, it will be ours as well.
So if we can be glorified with Him on earth, we will be glorified with Him in heaven.
But His glorification on earth is on the cross.
That's where we want to be, because that's what he told us, where I am, there also will
my servant be.
And so in order to be with him in heaven, let's begin by being with him on Calvary,
to participate in his passion.
We've all got it anyway.
You don't have to go looking for it.
It's happening in all of our lives.
It's just a question of do we accept it and what do we do with it?
So to have the humility to accept, to have the humility to embrace it, to have the charity
to give it to God, then we can be glorified with our Lord on earth and thanks be to God
forever in heaven.