St. Paul told the Galatians that he bore in his body the “brand marks” (stigmata) of Jesus. (6:17). On this day in 1224 St. Francis received those five wounds on his own flesh. The feast of the Holy Cross culminated his identification with Christ crucified.

Prior to St. Francis, Christian art tended to portray Jesus in his glory – Christ the Pantocrator, the Lord of Creation, the Judge. Even when on the cross, Jesus was often shown as a fully robed priest. Francis, while far from denying Jesus' Godhead, wanted to emphasize the divine humility. For example, in a cave above the hills of Greccio, he recreated the manger scene to show how God accepted the weakness and total dependence of a baby. But as St. Paul tells us today, he humbled himself even further, “becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”

You may have heard that Mel Gibson is making a movie about the final hours of Jesus’ earthly life – The Passion. It stars Jim Caviezel who is from Mount Vernon. (Last year his parents attended the Father Corapi retreat here at Holy Family.) If you have been listening to Sacred Heart Radio or watching EWTN, you may have heard the moving interview where he tells what it was like to portray Christ in his suffering.

The movie contains a glimpse of Mel Gibson. It shows his hand holding the nail which is driven into Christ’s palm. Gibson did this to underline his own guilt, which in Christian theology he shares with all mankind, for the death of Jesus.

Today the Church not only invites us to identify with the Cross, but to exalt it. As Catholics we carry the cross in our entrance procession at Mass. In doing this, we follow the example of Moses who lifted up the bronze serpent in the desert to bring healing. In the Gospel, Jesus tells us that action prefigured his own redemptive death.

According to early traditions, when the cross of Jesus was recovered in Jerusalem, they were able to distinguish it from other wooden beams because it brought healing to an afflicted woman. St. Augustine tells how the cross heals the two greatest wounds. It heals human despair by the free gift of mercy. And it heals our arrogance or pride by showing us the divine humility.

Today we lift high the cross of Christ. We recognize this involves embracing whatever cross he may have sent to you or me. As another St. Francis, St. Francis de Sales said, "We must carry the cross we have and not another, and its merit does not consist in the quality of the cross, but in the perfection with which it is carried."

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