The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

Today we celebrate the day when St. Helena the mother of Constantine found the true Cross of Our Lord, in the year 326.

The Introit for today's Mass sets the tone for us today. It is taken from Gal. 6, 14: "But it behooves us to glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ: in Whom is our salvation, life and resurrection; by Whom we are saved, and delivered."

The epistle today speaks of Christ humbling Himself in obedience unto death upon the cross. And in the Gospel today Our Lord Himself compares His crucifixion to the serpent that Moses lifted up in the desert that caused all who looked upon it to be cured. So it is that all those who look upon the cross and believe in Christ will not perish, but will have eternal life.

The cross which was to be an instrument of torture, ignominy and shame, has become to us a sign of victory, honor and glory.

Crucifixion was designed to be the most painful and shameful death that anyone could suffer. And this is the death that Our Lord chose to endure for our salvation. He has sacrificed His innocent body to the torments that we have deserved to suffer. In this complete humiliation and degrading of Himself, He has won for us the forgiveness of our sins; He has opened the gates of Heaven for us; and He has made it possible for us to become true children of God.

Our foolish misguided pride often entices us to glory in the things of this world: pleasure; power; and wealth. Even though our intellect points out very clearly that these things are all vain and empty; and they never leave us in peace or contentment. These things are truly our shame and we are fools who glory in shame.

Yet, that which appears shameful in the eyes of the world (humiliation, crosses, suffering, and death) is that which brings us glory in the eyes of God and merits an eternal happiness for us in Heaven.

Our strength and happiness lie in our own weakness. When we see and know what we should do yet, we consistently do not do it, we soon come to the realization of our own weakness. In the humble acceptance and acknowledgement of this weakness we learn that we are incapable of helping ourselves or doing anything well. We therefore understand that we must call out for help if we are going to succeed. And if we are the least bit cooperative with the grace of God, we know that only He can help us, because the rest of the world is in the same situation as we find ourselves.

It is therefore because of our weaknesses that we come to God, and therefore our own weaknesses are cause for us to glory. And that in which we think that we are strong is actually our greatest weakness. That in which we think we are strong causes us to trust in ourselves and become filled with pride and vanity and thus brings about our downfall. The more we distrust ourselves and trust only in God the safer we are.

Thus when we are given crosses to carry in imitation of Our Lord, we should not reject them, nor complain about them, but we should embrace them with loving hearts, because these are the instruments that will make us like Christ. It is these things that will humble us and bring us in thought and prayer to Him Who is the only One that can save us. This we should glory in. This we should rejoice in.

Knowing our own weakness and the strength that is given us through our acceptance of our crosses brings us to the point of actually loving our crosses. Just as Christ's cross brought us freedom from sin and death and gives us eternal life, so our own crosses gives us a clearer and truer (humbler) picture of our weaknesses and cause us to trust only in Him, and therefore brings us joy. We therefore can truly rejoice in our weaknesses because in our weakness we find strength in Christ.

The meekness and humility of Christ were the tools He used to overcome sin and death. This weakness in the eyes of the world is a real strength in the hands of God. Let us learn of Christ and the cross and not fear our crosses but love them and see in them a true cause for rejoicing.

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