Tại sao những người tốt lành phải chịu đau khổ? Thiên Chúa đã không cho chúng ta được một câu trả lời nào thỏa đáng cả. Nhưng một điều mà ai trong chúng ta biết là Thiên Chúa là Đấng đã yêu chúng ta vô bờ, vô bến vì chính Ngài đã chấp nhận mặc lấy thân phận con người như chúng ta, và để chia sẻ cuộc sống đau khổ trần thế với chúng ta, Ngài sẵn sàng chịu chết, chết một cách nhục nhã cho chúng ta trên cây thập giá. Thiên Chúa chắc chắc là không bao giờ vui thích chiến tranh, không bao giờ muốn có sự cướp bóc và bóc lột giã man, không thích khi thấy lũ lụt và bão táp, ung thư và bệnh tật.
Chúng ta sẽ không bao giờ có thể hiểu được những bí ẩn, là tại sao những người ăn ngay, ờ lành như chúng ta, như những người thân yêu cũa chúng ta lại phải gánh chịu những đau khổ hay phải chết, tại sao lại có bao nhiêu người đang đau khổ trong bệnh viện, người nghèo đói trong các công viên. Nhưng những gì chúng ta có thể làm được bây giờ là dâng lên cho Thiên Chúa những sự đau khổ của chúng ta như là những của lễ hy sinh cao cả và đừng bao giờ để những đau khổ đó trở nên lãng phí trong tuyệt vọng..
Bằng cách nào đó chúng ta hãy cố gắng biến đổi những đau khổ của chúng ta có thành những hy sinh. Đó một sự khác biệt. Hy sinh là đau khổ có mục đích. Thế giới con người của chúng ta đã học được một bài học đau khổ đã từ lâu: Sự hiệp nhất hoàn hảo với một ai đó hoặc một cái gì đó thân yêu; con người với con người, nam hay nữ, già, hay trẻ, kiến thức, hay nghệ thuật, có thể đạt được trong điều kiện tự hiến cũng chỉ vì tình yêu.
Trong mầu nhiệm của Đạo thánh Chúa Kitô, tình yêu tự hiến đã được nêu gương trong sáng bởi chính Chúa Giêsu qua đoạn Tin Mừng thánh Luca: "Ai muốn theo ta, phải từ bỏ chính mình, vác thập giá mình hằng ngày mà theo."(Lk 9:23). Một cái NẾU rất to: Nếu chúng ta muốn theo Chúa Giêsu Kitô, nếu chúng ta muốn trở thành môn đệ của Ngài, nếu chúng ta yêu Ngài thật sự và dám chịu nhận những đau khổ vì Ngài như Ngài đã bị đau khổ, bị khạc nhổ vào mặt, bị khinh bỉ, bị đánh đòn và bị đóng đinh cho chúng ta.
Why do good people suffer? God does not give any satisfactory answer. But this much we know. A God who loved me enough to take up a human body to share my life, to die shamefully and willingly for me on a cross - this God does not take pleasure in earthquakes, and war, in floods and volcanic eruption, in cancer and massacres. We cannot unravel the mystery; why our near and dear ones, why good people die. Why all the suffering people in our hospitals. What we can do is to keep our suffering from becoming sheer waste.
How? By transforming suffering into sacrifice. There is a difference. Sacrifice is suffering with a purpose. Our world has long since learned a painful lesson: Perfect oneness with someone or something beloved - man, woman, or child, music or medicine, knowledge or art - can be achieved only in terms of self-giving, only in terms of love. In the Christian mystery the self-giving love was summed up by Jesus in today's Gospel: "If you want to come after me, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow in my steps."(lk 9:23) A big if: If you want to come after him, if you want to be his disciple, if you love him enough to suffer for him as willingly as he was crucified for you.
Jesus said to Nicodemus: “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” John 3:13–15
Today, as we celebrate the great Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, we are invited to ponder Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, “a ruler of the Jews” (John 3:1). Nicodemus was one of the few Pharisees who believed in Jesus. In many Eastern Churches, he is honored as a saint.
Nicodemus approached Jesus early in His public ministry. By that time, Jesus had called some of His Apostles, performed His first sign at the wedding in Cana, and traveled to Jerusalem for Passover, where He cleansed the Temple, declaring, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace” (John 2:16). This was the first major public confrontation between Jesus and the religious leaders, many of whom were scandalized. Nicodemus, however, was moved by grace and came to Jesus secretly by night, saying, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God…” (John 3:2). Today’s Gospel is drawn from that quiet exchange.
As their conversation unfolds, Jesus turns Nicodemus’ attention to a mysterious episode from Israel’s history, one Nicodemus would have known well. When the Israelites sinned by speaking against God and Moses, the Lord sent serpents among them. Many of the people died. But when the people repented, God instructed Moses to mount a bronze serpent on a pole; those who looked upon it in faith were healed. Jesus reveals that this ancient sign prefigured something far greater: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”
This “lifting up” lies at the heart of today’s feast. The Exaltation of the Holy Cross is more than a remembrance of Christ’s suffering, it is a celebration of His victory. The Cross, once an instrument of Roman execution, has become the Tree of Life. Through His self-offering, Jesus conquered sin and death, transforming a curse into a blessing.
Return to Nicodemus. Having witnessed the miracle at Cana, the cleansing of the Temple, and Jesus’ powerful teaching, he was clearly stirred, yet still fearful, which is why he came at night. Imagine him hearing Jesus refer to Moses and the bronze serpent, and then saying, “So must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
The title “Son of Man” comes from the Book of Daniel (7:13–14), in which the prophet sees the “one like a son of man” coming on the clouds of heaven to receive everlasting dominion. Jesus used this title frequently to describe Himself, linking His earthly mission with divine authority.
In His encounter with Nicodemus, Jesus veils the deeper meaning. His being “lifted up” refers not to earthly power, but to His Crucifixion. Nicodemus likely didn’t grasp this at the time. He may have assumed Jesus was foretelling a messianic rise to political rule, overthrowing Roman oppression. Only after the Crucifixion and Resurrection would Nicodemus—and the other disciples—begin to understand the true nature of this first revelation that the lifting up of the Son of Man was the lifting of the Cross, the source of healing, life, and eternal glory.
Today, we are invited to exalt Christ’s Cross in our own souls. The paradox of the Cross—that such brutal torture and death brings life—is our glory. Because of Jesus’ Cross and the saving power that flowed from it, every suffering we endure, every cross we carry, and every injustice we suffer has the potential to share in the Exultation of the Holy Cross if we allow ourselves to be lifted up with Him, in confidence and rejoicing.
Reflect today on the mystery Jesus first revealed in secret. Through His exaltation on the Cross, He brings salvation to all who believe, also enabling our crosses to share in His triumph. Gaze upon the Cross with faith. What once symbolized death has become our hope, our healing, and our path to eternal life.
Most highly exalted Lord, though You spoke in veiled language when revealing Your “lifting up” to Nicodemus, You later spoke clearly as You offered Your life on the Cross for the salvation of the world. I pray that You and Your perfect Sacrifice may always be exalted in my heart—first through gratitude and praise, and then through imitation. Lift me up in every cross I carry, so that You may continue to be exalted through my life for the world to see. Jesus, I trust in You.
Opening Prayer: Lord God, I am humbled by the immensity and depth of your love. You did not spare your own Son but sent him into the world to die for us and free us from the ancient curse of death. You love me with an everlasting love. Teach me to receive this love with gratitude and to return it through the gift of my life.
1. Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross: Today we celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The feast commemorates both the discovery of the relic of the True Cross by Saint Helena in A.D. 326 and its subsequent recovery from the Persians in the seventh century. The date of the feast is connected with the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on September 13, A.D. 335. The following day, September 14, the True Cross was publicly venerated and exalted. Centuries later, in A.D. 614, the Persian king Khosrau II captured Jerusalem and carried the relic of the Cross away as a trophy. After the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius defeated the Persians, the relic was restored to Jerusalem in a solemn ceremony. The Church today does not celebrate the Cross merely as a historical relic. We exalt the Cross because upon it Christ offered himself for the salvation of the world. What appeared to be an instrument of shame and death became the instrument of redemption and life. The Cross reveals the depth of God's love: “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. John 3:16–17
If you step back and consider the amazing truth that one of the worst instruments of torture and death is now seen as one of the holiest of images on earth, it should be awe inspiring. Comprehending this fact should lead us to the realization that God can do anything and everything. God can use the worst and transform it into the best. He can use death to bring forth life.
Though our celebration today, the “Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross,” is first and foremost a feast by which we give glory to the Father for what He did in the Person of His divine Son, it is also a feast by which we must humbly understand that God can “exalt” every cross we endure in life and bring forth much grace through them.
What is your heaviest cross? What is the source of your greatest suffering? Most likely, as you call this to mind, it is painful to you. Most often, our crosses and sufferings are things we seek to rid ourselves of. We easily point to crosses in life and blame them for a lack of happiness. We can easily think that if only this or that were to change or be removed, then our life would be better. So what is that cross in your life?
The truth is that whatever your heaviest cross is, there is extraordinary potential for that cross to become an actual source of grace in your life and in the world. But this is only possible if you embrace that cross in faith and hope so that our Lord can unite it to His and so that your crosses can also share in the exaltation of Christ’s Cross. Though this is a profoundly deep mystery of faith, it is also a profoundly deep truth of our faith.
Reflect, today, upon your own crosses. As you do, try not to see them as a burden. Instead, realize the potential within those crosses. Prayerfully look at your crosses as invitations to share in Christ’s Cross. Say “Yes” to your crosses. Choose them freely. Unite them to Christ’s Cross. As you do, have hope that God’s glory will come forth in your life and in the world through your free embrace of them. Know that these “burdens” will be transformed and become a source of exaltation in your life by the transforming power of God.
My exalted Lord, I turn to You in my need and with the utmost faith in Your divine power to save. Please give me the grace I need to fully embrace every cross in my life with hope and faith in You. Please transform my crosses so that You will be exalted through them and so that they will become an instrument of Your glory and grace. Jesus, I trust in You.
Opening Prayer: Lord God, I am humbled by the immensity and depth of your love. You did not spare your own Son but sent him into the world to die for us and release us from the ancient curse of death. You love me with an eternal love. Help me return that same love.
1. Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross: Today, we celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. It recalls the discovery of the relic of the True Cross by St. Helena in A.D. 326. It is celebrated on September 14 because the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher took place on September 13, 335, and the veneration and public exaltation of the cross happened on the following day, September 14. The feast, which began in the seventh century, also celebrated the recovery of the relic from the Persians in A.D. 628 by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius. The Persian Emperor Khosrau (Chosroes) II captured Jerusalem in A.D. 614 and took the relic of the True Cross as a trophy. Over a decade passed until Heraclius successfully defeated the Persians. He placed the relic first in the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, but then returned the relic to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in a grand ceremony on March 21, 630. Today, we honor the cross of Christ as the instrument of Christ’s redemptive and salvific death and as the symbol of God’s love for us.
2. Voluntarily Confronting Suffering: The episode in the First Reading, in Numbers 21, has a profound psychological and theological dimension. By having the people of Israel look at the image of the bronze serpent, it was an invitation to the people to voluntarily confront their sufferings, trials, temptations, and tribulations. This is an important step to heal psychologically from a trauma and to grow in maturity. In the moral and spiritual life, we need, with God’s help and guidance, to confront the root causes of our sin, to do battle against the temptations of this world, to choose the path to the blessing of life over the path to the curse of death. God’s remedy is not to take away our suffering, but to help us grow and mature through suffering. The model is Jesus Christ, “who learned obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). Just as Jesus’ human nature was perfected through his life, passion, death, and resurrection, so also our nature will be perfected through sharing in Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection.
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