14/09/2025
📅 Sept. 14, 2025
🛐 (F) Exaltation of the Holy Cross
🧑🏫 National Catechetical Day
🙏 Sacerdotal Ordination Anniversary: Rev. Fr. Martin Ando M. Bañoc, Parish Priest of SMAP–Macrohon
👐 Vestment: 🔴
📕 Lectionary: 638
❤️🔥 NATIONAL CATECHETICAL DAY / CATECHISTS' SUNDAY
LOOK UP TO THE CROSS!
The Cross literally and figuratively takes "center stage" today, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. Earlier history, however, has a different take on the cross. For centuries, in the Roman Empire, the cross had been a sign of retribution and shame reserved for fugitive slaves and people who had committed heinous crimes. Jesus had done absolutely nothing to deserve it, but he accepted it, out of love for sinful mankind. His love — which reflects the love of the Father for all human beings — transformed the Cross into an instrument of hope and salvation for everyone. This is what makes the Cross a sacred symbol, a powerful reminder of God's immense love for us, and a source of salvation for all. Any disrespectful use of it is a terrible profanation. The Cross of Christ deserves only faith and love because it is through it that we receive everlasting life. The Cross, therefore, cannot but be exalted!
Let us begin this Eucharistic celebration by making the Sign of the Cross with faith and love.
1️⃣ Reading I (Nm 21:4b-9)
To save the repentant Israelites who were bitten by snakes, God orders Moses to raise up a saraph serpent on a pole for the people to look at. The serpent raised up is a powerful image of the Lord Jesus raised up on the cross for our salvation.
📖 A reading from the Book of Numbers (21:4b-9 NABRE)
[With] the people’s patience was worn out by the journey; so the people complained against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!”
So the Lord sent among the people seraph serpents, which bit the people so that many of the Israelites died. Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned in complaining against the Lord and you. Pray to the Lord to take the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people, and the Lord said to Moses: Make a seraph and mount it on a pole, and everyone who has been bitten will look at it and recover. Accordingly Moses made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever the serpent bit someone, the person looked at the bronze serpent and recovered.
- The word of the Lord.
🎼 Responsorial Psalm (Ps 78:1BC-2, 34-35, 36-37, 38)
R. (see 7b) Do not forget the works of the Lord!
1. Hearken, my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable, I will utter mysteries from of old. (R)
2. While he slew them they sought him and inquired after God again, remembering that God was their rock and the Most High God, their redeemer. (R)
3. But they flattered him with their mouths and lied to him with their tongues, though their hearts were not steadfast toward him, nor were they faithful to his covenant. (R)
4. But he, being merciful, forgave their sin and destroyed them not; often he turned back his anger and let none of his wrath be roused. (R)
2️⃣ Reading II (Phil 2:6-11)
Paul brings to memory the early Christian hymn of Christ's "kenosis," his emptying of self on the cross. Pleased with his total sacrifice, the Father exalts him above everything.
📖 A reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Philippians (2:6-11 NABRE)
[Brothers and sisters: Christ Jesus,] Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
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.
- The word of the Lord.
✝️ Gospel (Jn 3:13-17)
In his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus reveals that the prophetic figure of the bronze serpent as a source of salvation for the Jews in the desert will be fulfilled in the "lifting up" (the sacrificial death) of Jesus, the "Son of Man."
📖 A reading from the Holy Gospel According to John (3:13-17 NABRE)
[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.”
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.
- The Gospel of the Lord.
💭 Today's Reflections
GAZED UPON, LIFTED UP
Cl. Anjon Mamunta, SSP
There is something quietly unsettling about how we observe the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. It invites us to look up at something ancient people used to avoid: a cross which has been (and still is) used for punishment. How could something meant for shame become a symbol of hope?
In the First Reading, the Israelites are worn down by their journey, Disillusioned, they complain (Nm 21:4-5). The desert reveals their restlessness. When serpents begin to strike, they plead for deliverance. God tells Moses to fashion a bronze serpent and mount it on a pole. Those who gaze upon it are healed (Nm 21:8-9). Strangely, the very image that reminds them of suffering becomes a channel of life.
We hear Jesus draw on this moment in his conversation with Nicodemus in the Gospel. He says the Son of Man, too, must be lifted up so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life (Jn 3:14-15). Here, a pattern begins to emerge: life comes through death, healing through trust, salvation through surrender. It is not the removal of pain, but a redirection of our gaze that brings new life.
In the Second Reading, Paul deepens this paradox in his letter to the Philippians. Though Christ was in the form of God, he did not cling to his status. He emptied himself (kenosis), taking on our humanity and becoming obedient unto death—even death on a cross (Phil 2:6-8). This self-emptying, this humble descent, was the necessary path to his exaltation. From that downward path, God lifted him up and gave him the name above all names (Phil 2:9-11). In being lifted up, Christ first had to descend. Kenosis, then, teaches us that true glory is found not in grasping or asserting power, but in letting go and giving of oneself.
I remember a song from my time in CFC-Youth, during a season when I felt the need to always be in control, always appearing strong. The lyrics went: "I found my life / When I laid it down / Upward falling / Spirit soaring /I touch the sky /When my knees hit the ground." It helped me name something I was only beginning to understand: surrender is not weakness. Falling can lead to flight. The lowest places might be where grace quietly begins to rise.
Maybe this is what the Cross continues to reveal. Not a demand for perfection, but an invitation to come as we are. In our tiredness and disillusionment, we are not asked to climb our way up. We are simply asked to look. To fix our eyes on the One who chose to descend, who did not turn away from suffering, and who shows us what love looks like when it chooses to stay.
The Cross does not impose. It waits. And when we are ready, it lifts us not by force, but by drawing us to mercy. That may be where true healing begins.
Source: Euchalette by Word and Life Publications | Sambuhay Missalette by St Pauls Media Pastoral Ministry
Provided by: Drich N. Sumcio
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