By Msgr. Joseph Prior • Posted September 12, 2025

(See the readings for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross)

“God loves you,” the old woman said to the young man. He had been helping her one day in the garden. He had seen her bending over to pick up a potted plant as he walked by her property. She looked like she was struggling so he asked if he could help. “Thank you … yes I do need some help lifting this pot.”

The youth picked up the plant and moved it for her. “You are very kind,” the woman said, then added “God loves you.” The young man was startled by her words. He did not know what to say. “Ma’am, you do not even know me, how do you know God loves me?” “It doesn’t matter; He loves you.” Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a cross and gave it to him. “This is how I know he loves you.”

There in that garden, on a small street, in a small town, the Gospel was proclaimed by an old woman struggling to lift a small pot. She used a few words and a simple metal cross but the proclamation was bold and strong.

How do we know God loves us? Look to Christ. In the public ministry we have some wonderful, amazing, and beautiful witnesses of God’s love. We might think of the woman with hemorrhages finding no one to help her but Jesus (Matthew 9:20ff). We might think of the man tormented by Legion and freed from the shackles of evil (Mark 5:1-9). We might think of the woman caught in the act of adultery, sentenced to death but freed through forgiveness (John 8:1-11). We might think of the many people Jesus embraced in friendship.

We might think of his compassion in raising of the Widow of Nain’s son (Luke 7:11-17). We might think of the multitudes he fed with bread and fish (Matthew 13:13-21; Mark 6:34-44; Luke 9:10-17 and John 6:1-15). We might think of the joy he brought to the home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus (Luke 10:38-42). We might think of His loving devotion to Mary and Joseph. We might recall the inspiration he gave through teaching and preaching.

We might recall Jesus telling us to look at the birds of the sky and the flowers of the field to imagine the magnitude of our worth (Matthew 6:26-34). All of these lead to the definitive witness of God’s love and our worth – the cross.

St. John writes: “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” (John 3:16-17).

This Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Exultation of the Cross. The cross is the central symbol of our Christian faith. The paradox is that this instrument of the cruelest torture and death becomes a witness to love and life. We bless ourselves and objects with this sign. We find it hanging in our homes. We see it in our sanctuaries. Always and everywhere it is a reminder of God’s love.

Jesus speaks in the Gospel of the Son of Man being lifted up just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, which is a reference to our first reading from the Book of Numbers. Moses delivers from death the people bit by seraph serpents by lifting up the bronze serpent as a remedy. For us, Jesus’ being lifted on the cross is our deliverance from death and our freedom from sin. The cross becomes the sign of God’s love because Jesus freely embraced his suffering and death — the innocent for the guilty. He emptied himself totally, giving his very life that we might live. This is how we know God’s love: we look to Christ.

St. Paul knew this love. He wrote in his Letter to the Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me” (Galatians 2:19b-20). His life was transformed by that love; he has life because of the love of Christ Jesus, the love of God. We share the same faith, we share the same life, we share the same love.

Perhaps today we might ponder the magnitude of the gracious gift of love that knows no bounds. Paul would later use these words to express the cross and its significance as he wrote to the Phillipians:

“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.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name
that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.”

As we celebrate the Exultation of the Cross, we celebrate God’s love. The woman mentioned in the story above knew that love and shared the good news to the young man who helped her. We too, recognizing that love, can share the good news of God’s love, and in the words of the well-known hymn, “lift high the cross.”

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Msgr. Joseph Prior is pastor of Our Lady of Grace Parish, Penndel, and a former professor of Sacred Scripture and rector of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. Read more reflections by Msgr. Joseph Prior here.