Feast of the Triumph of the Cross

 The Triumph of the Holy Cross is the ultimate reversal of the earthly order of things. This is characteristic of God's activity in the world. Our Lady in the Magnificat proclaims: "He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty." (Lk 1: 52-53) Just as the font brings the baptized from entering a tomb to emerging from a womb, so the Cross goes from being an instrument of humiliation and torture to being the only true cause for boasting. St Paul tells the Galatians: "May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." (Gal 6: 14) The ostensible victory of the Devil becomes a cataclysmic, cosmic and eternal defeat that vindicates God's love for us: "But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us." (Rm 5: 8) Jesus is revealed as the one who conquers sin and death by means of the cross and brings about true peace which the world cannot give. This has the consequence of the forgiveness of sins: "God made you alive together with him, when he forgave all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it." (Col 2: 13-15) Thus, Jesus' triumph, through the cross, becomes our triumph too if we stay but loyal to him and true to his commands: "If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful - for he cannot deny himself." (2 Tim 2: 11-13)