The Lord Is My Chef Breakfast Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Tuesday, Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, 14 September 2021 Numbers 21:4-9 ><]]]]*> Philippians 2:6-11 ><]]]]*> John 3:13-17
God our loving Father, in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic when being "negative" is actually "positive", help us see the meaning of celebrating your transformation of repugnant symbols of suffering and death into signs of glory and majesty like the snake and the cross.
Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
Numbers 21:9
How wonderful it is, Father when you transformed a dangerous snake into a healing and saving symbol at the desert, prefiguring the crucifixion of your Son Jesus Christ who showed us personally that the path to exaltation is through lowliness or self-emptying.
Brothers and sisters: 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.
Philippians 2:6-9
Most amazing of all, dear Father is how you have transformed in Jesus the most cruel instrument of suffering and death which is the cross into a symbol of salvation. What a beautiful transformation you have brought in Christ's Passion, Death, and Resurrection when the most negative sign has become the clearest positive sign of all!
Jesus told Nicodemus: “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” 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 3:14-17
Help us find and celebrate, O God, in this Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross Christ's resurrection and glory in heaven, instead of mourning his death for he is Life himself; help us focus on healing and salvation instead of dwelling on pain and suffering especially in this time of the pandemic; may his Cross be our light in guiding us through the darkness of COVID-19, transforming us within to see ourselves and one another clearly as your beloved children, dear Father, realizing the depths of your love and mercy while looking up to Jesus on the Cross. Amen.
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