Today the Church celebrates one of the most profound and mystery-laden solemnities of the liturgical year: the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. It is not a mere cult of suffering, but the celebration of the greatest paradox of the Christian faith. That wood, an ancient instrument of torture and extreme infamy reserved for wrongdoers in the Roman Empire, was admirably transformed by the love of Christ into a pulpit of mercy, a universal symbol of redemption and a banner of definitive victory over sin and death. The historical roots of this feast date back to the 4th century, inextricably linked to the memory of the dedication of the Constantinian basilicas on Golgotha and at the Holy Sepulchre, consecrated on September 13 and 14, 335. To this memory was later added, in the 7th century, the recollection of the miraculous recovery of the relic of the True Cross, which had been stolen by the Persians and triumphantly brought back to Jerusalem by Emperor Heraclius in 628. In a world that often avoids pain and struggles to understand the meaning of limitations, the Cross still stands today as an existential compass. It reminds us that the path to fullness passes through the total gift of self and that the apparent defeat of crucified love is, in reality, the luminous dawn of the resurrection.
