Daily Gospel Reflection
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September 14, 2025
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.
Reflection
A woman I greatly respect, who had recently experienced a significant personal loss, once gave me some valuable advice: “Don’t just thank God for the good things in your life,” she told me, “try to thank God for the very worst things in your life. Because those things are God’s gifts too.” This is hard counsel, seemingly impossible counsel, but it has stuck with me.
God gave the Israelites the gift of manna to eat in the desert. The Israelites grew tired of eating manna and complained against God and were punished for their ingratitude—snakes came and bit them, and they died. They cried out to God to save them from the punishment they brought upon themselves, and God, ever merciful, relented. God told Moses to create a bronze serpent and hold it up on a cross, and everyone who looked on the serpent was healed.
Today’s gospel reading highlights Christ as the ultimate answer to Adam’s sin. God continually bestows gifts on us, and we, in our pride, continually choose instead the path that leads to death. Christ is the cure for the death brought on by our own ingratitude, but we cannot see the cure as a cure, let alone accept it, except through his saving grace.
It’s easy to recognize that we need Christ to avoid sin. But this reading implies something beyond that: we need to be redeemed by Christ even to recognize the good things God gives us for the good things they are; to embrace what comes from heaven as indeed heaven-sent.
Prayer
Lord, we know that there is no failure your love cannot reverse, no humiliation you cannot exchange for blessing, no anger you cannot dissolve, no routine you cannot transfigure. All is swallowed up in the victory of your Son’s cross. You have nothing but gifts to offer. In picking up our daily crosses, help us to find how even the cross can be borne as a gift. Amen.
Saint of the Day
For centuries, the Church has gathered on this date to venerate the cross upon which Jesus died.
On this date in 320, during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, St. Helen discovered the site where local Christians believed Jesus was crucified. Underneath this site of a pagan temple, she found three buried crosses—Jesus’ own, and the crosses of the two thieves executed beside him. How did Helen identify which cross was the one on which Jesus died? A sick woman was told to kiss each cross, and when she kissed the third cross, she was healed.
Helen also discovered the inscription that was placed on the cross above Jesus’ head and the nails that pierced his hands and feet. When she was certain she had found the true cross, it was lifted up for all to see and the gathered people responded in acclamation of praise.
The date of this discovery was remembered and used to dedicate churches that were later built over the places of Jesus’ death and burial. Pieces of the true cross were kept in a silver reliquary box in the church that was built over Jesus’ tomb. Early authors all agree that the relics were comprised of pieces of the true cross; the cross was not preserved in its entirety.
In the centuries that followed, conflicts overran the Holy Land multiple times, and invading forces claimed the relics as a prize. When Emperor Heraclius recovered the pieces of the cross in 629 after one incursion, he gathered the people on this date for a solemn liturgy to venerate the relics. When the pieces were lifted up for veneration, many sick were miraculously cured.
The feast of the Exaltation of the Cross is one of the great feast days of the Orthodox Church. Pieces of the true cross are part of the reliquary collection in the Basilica, and brought out for veneration, especially on Good Friday. The reliquary also holds a piece of the rock of Calvary, where Jesus was crucified, as well as pieces of his tomb.
On this feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, let us remember Jesus’ suffering and death and look to the cross for healing and life!