Taking the crucified people from the cross.

 
Reading: For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:17.
 
Good morning, happy Tuesday, and many blessings my dear family.
 
The Gospel (John 3:13-17) for this Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross begins as Jesus is talking with Nicodemus. Jesus tells 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. Then everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”
 
Appropriately, the Gospel is taken from John whose whole Gospel is a celebration of the Triumph of the Cross. In today’s extract the crucifixion is presented as the first step in His ascent to God, the glorification of the Son. What does the cross mean in your life today?
 
On Good Friday we are caught up with the suffering and death of Jesus and the cost to Him of losing his life in such a painful way. Today, the Feast of The Exaltation of the Holy Cross, we celebrate his great love for us as shown in that act of suffering and praise Him in thanksgiving for thinking of us in this way. Greater love than this no one can have – it is the ultimate of the expression of love.
 
In our exaltation of the Cross lies the basic paradox of our faith in Jesus Christ. We believe that the suffering of Jesus brought us salvation, and that we are called to express this faith by joining our own suffering with His. I believe that doing this saves my suffering from meaninglessness and furthers the salvation of the world from suffering. I gaze in wonder at the depth of God's wisdom and mercy, I adore the risen Jesus, and ask for a deep sense of gratitude in front of this mystery.
 
In the cross of Christ is our freedom and birth to a new life. God generously gave us his own Son so that we might all truly live. In our tradition, the cross is the icon of great faith, hope and love. As I gaze and contemplate Christ on the cross, I ask the Lord for his redemptive and healing love that embraces the whole world.
 
The present reality is that we have passed from the crucifixion of Jesus to the crucifixion of the people. Hence, we can develop a salvific liberation theology of the cross. We must understand that the cross as a symbol of liberation is a meeting point between God, and the community, and between the community with the community. Therefore, the main message should be to bring down the crucified people from the cross and to achieve their holistic liberation: spiritual, social, economic, political, cultural, sexual, racial, religious, etc. Otherwise, we have remained in a romanticism of a cross that only produces tears and resignation.  This is the reason why the praxis of pastoral theology of our Holyrood Church is to take the crucified people from the cross. and walk by their side. The cross for us is a radical experience of veneration, reunification, reconciliation, reconnection, and liberation.
 
Blessings,
 
Fr. Luis+