By Jenny Kraska

Each year on September 14, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross – a day when Christians are invited to lift high the very instrument of Christ’s death. It is a strange and striking paradox: we exalt something that was once a symbol of shame and cruelty.

At this moment in time that paradox feels especially hard to embrace. In just the past few weeks we have been shaken by the tragic mass shooting of Catholic school children at Mass in Minneapolis. We have again marked the anniversary of 9/11, remembering the terror and grief of that day. We have witnessed the shocking assassination of Charlie Kirk. And beyond our borders, the world continues to be scarred by the seemingly unending horrors of war – whole cities reduced to rubble, families torn apart, and countless lives lost with no end in sight. These events leave many hearts feeling crushed under the weight of sorrow, fear, and anger.

Against this backdrop, celebrating the Cross can seem almost impossible. How can we rejoice in the Cross when so many are being nailed to their own crosses in real time? How can we speak of glory when there is so much grief?

And yet, this is the very heart of the Christian mystery. Jesus tells us in John’s Gospel this week that just as Moses lifted the bronze serpent in the desert to heal the people, so the Son of Man must be lifted up on the Cross to bring eternal life. He does not avoid suffering or explain it away. Instead, He enters fully into it. He lets the hatred, violence, and sin of the world do their worst and, in that moment of seeming defeat, He transforms the Cross into the greatest sign of love the world has ever known.

This does not make our pain disappear. But it gives our pain meaning. It tells us that even here – even in the face of children murdered at Mass, even in the long shadow of 9/11, even in the shock of political violence, even amid the destruction of war – God has not abandoned us. He is with us in the suffering, and He is already at work redeeming it.

The Cross is not the end of the story. The One who was lifted up in agony now reigns in glory. Because of this, we dare to believe that love is stronger than hate, that life is stronger than death, and that light shines even in the darkest places.

Our hope in the Cross must be greater than the weight of the Cross. That is not an easy hope. It is a hope that looks straight at the wounds of the world and still chooses to believe in resurrection. As we gaze upon the Cross this week, may we place all the sorrow we carry at its foot and dare to trust that the God who brought life from death will do it again.