Like Him, Let us Embrace our Cross

(Homily of Most Rev. Romulo G. Valles, D.D., Archbishop of Davao during the Feast of the exaltation of the Cross and 72nd Fiesta of the Holy Cross of Davao College, September 14, 2023.)

Holy Cross, the words are contradictory, nabuang ba ta? Ang cross kamatayon, pag-antos, terrible, terrible ang cross, misery, death. How can you name apparently, the cross, death-giving, anti-life, as holy? If I may add, cross is the tatak of our lives. The tatak of this world is cross, how can it be holy? So you see I’m provoking you, ang two words holy cross, dili sibo, parang mismatch, parang mali, wrong. That’s the beauty of our celebration. To provoke us right at the very center of our common experience that life is a cross, burdensome. The truth is veritas, veritatem, the truth is in the mystery of this feast today.

The first reading, it’s an age old story of the people of Israel, during the time of Moses, hundreds of years, before Christ, they remember in their cross, in their misery in the desert, death even, God told Moses, “put up a [pole] serpent… and with my word let people face that misery,” and they were healed. John, in today’s Gospel Reading, first part, the Son of God will be raised up like the pole of old and it will give life. In other words, the style of God is not to run away from the very nature of our life, which is our own cross. God accompanies us, Jesus walked with us up to the end. Ang atong palad, ang atong fate, mao ang kapildihan sa cross. He walked with us subay sa dalan sa kinabuhi and embraced the cross, embraced death.