14 September, Monday — Nothing but you, Lord

Sep 14 – Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

The feast was celebrated in Rome before the end of the 7th century. Its purpose is to commemorate the recovering of that portion of the Holy Cross which was preserved at Jerusalem, and which had fallen into the hands of the Persians. Emperor Heraclius recovered this precious relic and brought it back to Jerusalem on 3 May 629.

• Patron Saint Index

Phi 2:6-11
Jn 3:13-17

His state was divine, yet Christ Jesus did not cling to his equality with God but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave…

St Thomas Aquinas was once praying before a crucifix when Christ asked him what reward he wanted for having written so well of him. Aquinas answered: Non nisi te, Domine — “Nothing but you, Lord.”

That answer captures what it means to exalt the Cross. To look at something so grotesque, an instrument of torture, humiliation, and death, and see in it the person we should desire above everything else.

Christ was divine but did not cling to his equality with God. He emptied himself and took the condition of a slave. He chose the lowest place. He subjected himself to the full ugliness of the human condition and everything in us that put him there: our stupidity, egotism, pride, doubt, cowardice, and betrayal. These were not merely human weaknesses. They were what brought Christ to the Cross. They crucified Christ. The Cross forces us to confront what we are capable of when pride, fear and self-interest take over.

But the Cross also reveals God. Faced with the very worst of us, Christ continued to love. The Cross was meant to humiliate and destroy him, but God made it the means of our salvation. Christ humbled himself even unto death, and God raised him high.

That is why we exalt the Cross. Not because suffering itself is good, but because God took something so terrible and made it the place where his love was revealed most completely.

And if this is the God we claim to follow, who are we to refuse our own crosses? Who are we to cling so tightly to our pride, resentment, comfort, need for control and need to be vindicated, when Christ himself did not cling even to equality with God?

To exalt the Cross is to be able to look at Christ crucified and say what St Thomas Aquinas said: Nothing but you, Lord. Above my comfort, my pride, my plans, and my insistence on having things my way, only you. And if following Christ means that something in me must die, then let it die.

(Today’s OXYGEN by Stacey Fernandez)

Prayer: Lord Jesus, help me to die to my pride, fear and self-interest, and to carry my crosses with faith. May I always be able to say: Nothing but you, Lord. Amen.

Thanksgiving: Lord Jesus, thank you for revealing on the Cross the depth of your love for us. Thank you for the gift of your sacrifice and for the salvation that comes through you. Amen.