September 14 John's Birthday, Exaltation of the Cross

John

Happy Birthday – 2008
Good morning 9-15-08
I love you

This morning I talked with Grandpa – 83 today [like Kelly is 19 today]. He said that he had already heard from Uncle Ken and Kelly and that Uncle Ken was flying in to visit for the day. [certain advantages to free flying tickets] Grandpa sounded not as up as I’ve heard him lately. 83 could be his last year [like 59 mine, 21 yours…. Not so much a downer on things – more Ignatian as well as a reminder not to wake up one day regretting that you hadn’t called or written - made contact with, especially those to whom you have filial duties….]

I was there for you yesterday. Mass at SPX. A scoot to campus. And home until about ten o’clock when I left for my current jobsite.

Msgr. gave his usually fine sermon – this one with the history lesson: Helen and Constantine. The story of pilgrimage. The transition from cross as a symbol of degradation to one of salvation – read Paul to the Philippians [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.] or more directly John’s quoting Jesus: “so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” Infathomable!

I hope your birthday was a wonderful celebration of who you are – God’s gift to all of us and us to you – and what you have received [‘thank you’ to the people who have given you is a human as well as filial responsibility] and what opportunities your gifts and resources offer you. I’m sorry you chose to celebrate without including all those/us people. I hope you have also already given Grandpa the thanks for this year’s present and also for all that he’s given you, for simply being your Grandpa – not to mention the happy birthday call today.



September 14
Exaltation of the Holy Cross

[catholic encyclopedia on line]

Coincident – your birthday and this feast day. And no other biggie – I’m guessing that’s by someone’s plan. It’s such an important feast, it overrides the Sunday calendar.

Paul – and in this year of Jubilee for St Paul he should be a daily read – has a splattering of references to the Cross as a source of focus, a way to remember Jesus, and a symbol associated with Jesus’ sacrifice, his Passion. That’s why we wear a crucifix; or carry a rosary with a crucifix; or have a crucifix in our room/home. To remember who we are and how we are connected to Jesus and the Cross…. “With Christ, I am nailed to the Cross” [Gal 2;19] “The Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world” [Gal 6:14]. Paul’s pronouns speak for us, too.

It took a little while for the cult of the Cross to evolve in our Tradition – a veneration of the Cross: think Good Friday’s liturgy!

The story of the discovery of the Cross – or as Msgr said, if we put the all the shards of the one true cross together we’d be able to build an ark! So, as important as the true pieces are – it’s the veneration of the purpose via the thing that brings us [to our priority goal] closer to Jesus Himself.

About 327 the bishop of Jerusalem probably uncovered the site of the Sepulcher and of Calvary – with the stumps of the cross in the ground excavated, identified as authentic wood of The Cross. The bishop had a chapel built there. The full story of St Helena’s legend is a worthy read – the mother of the Emperor, on a pilgrimage [a quest?] to discover the original sites. Go to the Source for the fullness of explication – as well as whenever you want to get closer to the original event, intent….

Around 360, Julian the Apostate emperor at Constantine, made it a crime to trace the cross on one’s forehead or to engrave it on the door frame to one’s home…. Recognizing in an imperial suppressory [neologism] way, the venerated cross. When the ruler of your kingdom suppresses an act, a belief, an expression of feeloughts, question with God what is the Truth and what you should do that is Right

It was a boon for tourism to have the excavated original sites of the launching of Christianity. Pilgrimages – I suggest you take yours regularly as well. To the Holy Land fersure; back to Rome but this time qua pilgrim; to the shrines here in USA, Notre Dame or even those nearer by…. Following the example of St Helena, a woman who had everything – ev ry thing! And still sought Jesus and his incomprehensible gateway to God and eternity. Venerate the Cross in your own way, possibly imagining as though Jesus is still hanging there for you/us [which He is, metapophorically….]

In the vocabulary of the Church, in our veneration of the Holy Cross, Second council of Nicea: ‘the honor paid to the image passes to the prototype; and he who adores the image, adores the person whom it represents….’ ‘while it is of faith that this cult is useful, lawful, even pious and worthy of praise and of encouragement, and while we are not permitted to speak against it as something pernicious, still it is one of those devotional practices which the church can encourage, or restrain, or stop, according to circumstances.’

The Feast of the Cross like so many other liturgical feasts, had its origin at Jerusalem, and is connected with the commemoration of the Finding of the Cross and the building, by Constantine, of churches upon the sites of the Holy Sepulcher and Calvary.

Like your birthday is connected to the commemoration of your conception; birth during that Monday night football game between Giants and Bears; a celebration of love….

Liturgical Readings:


Nm 21:4b-9

With their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert,….

How has your journey worn you out? How is it that you came to complain against God, Moses, and moi? And how is it that you sustain your complaint. Do you not yet understand the journey from marriage [of the wedding believed to be marriage] to conception, to birth, to the raising of our son in faith – because we are all created in the image of God, to knowloveandserveHimhere and bewithHimforeverinheaven. The journey from Nashville to GSO. The journey from infant to child to adolescent, on the threshold of adulthood [the five indicators of adult are…. ].

How is it that you have defined your place – then or now – as a desert? How have you come to complain about your going to die? Except to die with Jesus on the Cross, no other dying is relevant; and of no real concern, just a fact jack.

the LORD said to Moses, “Make a saraph and mount it on a pole, and if any who have been bitten look at it, they will live….”

The symbol has been kidnapped by the medical profession. It was, we’ve discovered, a precursor of Jesus Cross. It was not the kissing of the pole. It is the faith that brings to kisser to believe, to be cured….


Phil 2:6-11

Christ Jesus, 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….

Each one of us, though we think of ourselves as Ego [gods], we are not equal with God, though created in His image and likeness. It is for us to empty ourselves, give ourselves to God as “His slave” worthy to be His because He says so. The kicker is our humbling ourselves – becoming obedient to His Love, being in love with Him, giving Him love, i.e., our obedience; until death do us rejoin him much more closely than now….

Sure there’s an aside here on obedience: obedience qua love. As Augustine said [or was it Aquinas, I never remember], love God and do whatever you want. And that cascades down: love self, and do whatever you want. Love [honor too] father and mother, and do whatever you want. Love brother and do whatever you want…. To love is to obey, fealty, to live for the other…..


Jn 3:13-17

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….

As the guy on csi ny says, it’s all connected. And it’s refreshing to see he readings so tightly connected….

Maybe we can modify Augustine: Believe in God and do whatever you want. Do not hesitate to free yourself to that believe; to receive His Love – the secret of a father’s love, The Father’s Love – it’s forever, no matter what….



Not particularly refined offering for your birthday. The two boxes and card and letters I’ll write about sometime soon. You are welcome. And my grandchildren, I hope, will enjoy and appreciate the giving as well as the gifts, too.

I love you
Dad