(The Feast of the Holy Cross: This homily was given on September 14, 1997 at St. Pius X Church in Westerly, R.I. by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Philippians 2: 6-11; John 3: 13-17.)

"The Cross of Jesus Christ is not the problem, it’s the solution!"

The cross of Jesus Christ is the solution, it’s not the problem.

We live in an age of human history that has rejected the cross of Christ in all its meaning. For many men and women of the 90’s, the cross is the problem. And we are now reaping the consequences of this terribly destructive attitude.

And so--what is the meaning of the Lord’s cross? What is it that’s being rejected? Well, first of all, the cross of Jesus Christ is the ultimate expression of God’s love for us; it’s the ultimate expression of self-sacrificial love. As Jesus said to Nicodemus in today’s gospel text from John 3: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son."

The cross of Christ is also the ultimate expression of humility. As we heard today in the passage from Philippians 2: "Though he was in the form of God, [Jesus] did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at. Rather he emptied himself and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. He was known to be of human estate and it was thus that he humbled himself, obediently accepting even death, death on a cross!"

It’s also clear from these words that the cross of Christ is the ultimate expression of obedience-- of selfless obedience to God’s will.

The cross is also the ultimate sign of God’s mercy and forgiveness. As Jesus said to Nicodemus: "The Son of Man must be lifted up, so that all who believe may have eternal life in him." Jesus was lifted up on the cross, so that our sins might be forgiven through the power of his blood.

And finally, the cross of Christ is the ultimate sign of victory: victory over sin, victory over death and victory over suffering. (It doesn’t mean that we will not suffer. But it does mean that through the cross we can have the power to deal successfully with all the sufferings that come our way.) As it says in verse 9 of Philippians 2: "Because [Jesus obediently accepted death on the cross] God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name above every other name." Good Friday was not the end for Jesus--he rose from the dead victoriously three days later! We must never forget that!

I said a few minutes ago that we live in an age that has rejected the cross of Christ in all its meaning. By now it should be obvious why I said that: the cross stands for virtues that our world has rejected. First of all, the cross stands for self-sacrificial love. We live in an age of selfish love. That, by the way, is why Mother Teresa stood out so clearly in the crowd! In today’s world, most people want others to do for them. In the spirit of self-sacrificial love, Mother Teresa did for others.

The cross stands for humility. In the modern world, it’s not humility that counts, it’s celebrity that matters! That’s what keeps the paparazzi in business!

The cross stands for obedience to the will of God; it stands for mercy and forgiveness. In the modern world those are not admirable traits.

This is why I said a few moments ago that for many men and women of the 90’s, the cross is the problem: self-sacrifice, humility, obedience, and self-discipline are not for them. Now this is an attitude that has been with us since the fall of Adam and Eve, but it’s an attitude that has really taken root in our world since the 1960’s. The 1960’s was a decade of selfishness and self-indulgence; virtues like self-discipline and self-sacrifice were actively discouraged in popular culture. And we are now reaping the rotten fruit of this anti-cross philosophy. It’s all around us.

Here’s an example of what I mean: I read an article in last week’s Time magazine which dealt with today’s teenagers. The author made the point that today’s teens are the children of the children of the 60’s--in other words, many of them are the children of men and women who grew up in the 60’s and who have lived their lives by the 60’s philosophy of self-indulgence. And these teens are not happy, they are not positive in their outlook--quite oppositely, they are morbid and pessimistic--even though they’re living wild lives themselves in many cases. A 15 year old girl named Alexandra was quoted as saying this: "This is a disgusting generation. It’s a disgusting time to live in. It’s boring. The 90’s is an exhausted decade. There’s nothing to look for and nowhere to go. This generation really hasn’t got any solid ground." The author described this girl as "passionately apathetic." I couldn’t have said it better myself. Then the author said this, "What were we trying to do [in the 1960’s] but complete our parents’ liberation of the world? What were we trying to build if not that shining city on a hill--albeit in rainbow colors. We failed. We ran out of answers. Now there is no politics, just the petty scuffling of narrow self-interests. There is no cause but our own happiness, which we search for in the marketplace. And this is the example our children have grown up with."

You see, my brothers and sisters, when we reject the cross of Christ in all it’s meaning; in other words when we reject the self-discipline, the humility, the self-sacrifice, etc., then our own crosses become unbearable--and we end up like poor Alexandra: we end up jaded--worn out through our own self-indulgence. Life then becomes a terrible burden.

But there is good news: the good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way, if we know and embrace the truth! The truth is that cross of Jesus Christ gives meaning to life. The cross of Jesus Christ reveals to us who God is. The cross of Jesus Christ teaches us how valuable we are (God loves us so much that he died for us so that we might live forever with him). The cross of Jesus Christ even gives meaning to our sufferings. As the cross of Jesus was his path to eternal life, so too our crosses can bring us closer to God, if we allow them to. Some people have difficulty understanding how Mother Teresa could have been such a joyful person because she had such a difficult life--every day she faced poverty, sickness, disease and death. And yet she exuded an incredible joy! This confused many people. They said, "How can this be? How is this possible? This does not compute!" Well, let’s clear up the ambiguity--Mother Teresa was joyful for one reason and one reason only: because she understood and embraced the cross of Christ in all its meaning! The cross gave meaning to her sufferings; the cross gave meaning to her work; the cross taught her the virtues that made her the loving person that she was. Simply put: Mother Teresa knew what young Alexandra and many others today don’t realize--she knew that the cross of Christ is not the problem, it’s the solution. May all of us know the solution in our own lives.