The Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Year C) Sunday 14th September 2025
- Fr Doug
- Sep 12, 2025
- 4 min read
THE TRIUMPH OF THE CROSS (2025)
Through Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary, infinite Grace was given to all creation over all time. And that Grace given at the moment of that Sacrifice, 2000 years ago, is equally as powerful at this moment. A great tragedy in life is not being aware of the value or power of the Cross.
When we have a Cross, we must offer it up. Our Lady of Fatima said that when we offer our crosses to God, we can stop wars, and we save people from going to hell. There is nothing that the cross can’t do.
Our Lady of Fatima on May 13th asked the three young visionaries, aged 11, 9 and 7: “Will you offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He sends you?” The children replied without hesitation: “Oh we will. We will.”
On July 13th after the children were shown hell, she said: “Make sacrifices for sinners and say often, ‘Oh my Jesus I make this sacrifice for love of you, for the conversion of sinners and for reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.’”
Every day we experience numerous crosses, sickness, family tragedy, fear, rejection and so on. The cross can also be voluntary: denying a pleasure, fasting, watching less TV, giving money to charity, forgiving ones enemy, being more patient etc…
Jesus is the ideal. He offered His life perfectly for us. Some saints, like Christ, actually desired the Cross.
Padre Pio: (1887-1968)
He said if we knew the value of suffering, we would asl for more. One of the painful phenomena rather frequent in Padre Pio’s life were assaults made on him by devils. Padre Pio described one of these assaults as follows to his spiritual director:
“It was late at night, and they began their assault with devilish noise. Instead of getting terrified, I prepared for the battle, they came before me under the most detestable appearances. They hurled themselves on me, threw me on the floor and gave me terrific blows, throwing into the air pillows, books and chairs at the same time letting out desperate cries and uttering extremely filthy words.” “They beat him so brutally,” Padre Pio said later, “that I think it was a very great grace that I was able to stand it without dying.”
“Transverberation,”
Which the Spanish mystic, St John of the Cross, calls, “the Seraph’s assault.” A supernatural gift of grace which different Saints have received, among whom was St. Teresa of Avila. Padre Pio gives a description, August 1918, “I was hearing our boys’ confession during the evening of August 5th when, all of a sudden, I was extremely terrified at the sight of a heavenly visitor who appeared before the eyes of my mind. In his hand he held something looking like a long iron rod with a sharp point. Fire seemed to be coming out of the point. This person hurled this pointed rod violently into my soul I felt like I was dying. This martyrdom lasted without interruption for forty-eight hours. From that day I feel a wound that is always open, which puts me in agony.
Stigmata:
It was the morning of the 20th of September, 1918; after celebrating Holy Mass I saw a mysterious visitor before me. Then the vision of the visitor passed away and I saw that my hands, feet and side were pierced and dripping blood. You will imagine the pain I felt then and that I kept experiencing almost every day continually.
A remark of Padre Pio discloses his active share in Jesus’ crucifixion, which he re-lived at the altar during Mass. When a spiritual daughter asked him how he could manage to stand up throughout the Mass when the wounds on his feet were paining him, Padre Pio replied, “My daughter, during Mass I am not standing on my feet. I am hanging.” Being with Jesus suspended on the Cross. He wrote he suffered all that Jesus suffered on the Cross as much as it is possible for a human.
One day a sturdy, strong gentleman who was a spiritual son of Padre Pio met him in a corridor of the friary and saw that he was exhausted from his terrible suffering. Deeply touched he went up to him and moved by a generous impulse, he said, “Padre Pio, give me your sufferings. I will bear them at least for a time.” “You would die like one struck with lightning!” Padre Pio answered at once.
Once he gave this answer to someone who asked how much he suffered: “As much as one can suffer who bears all humanity on his shoulders.
Persecution:
False rumours reached the Vatican. As a result, from 1923 to 1933 his spiritual director was taken from him, he was forbidden to write letters, suspended from hearing confessions and forbidden to have any contact with the faithful. He could celebrate holy Mass only in the little private chapel of the friary.
It is not easy to carry the Cross. It takes heroic love. Our Lord set the example.
Our Lord also said: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
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