Archive for September 13, 2025

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Posted: September 13, 2025 by CatholicJules in Sunday Reflections
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Numbers 21:4b-9
Psalm 78:1bc-2, 34-35, 36-37, 38
Philippians 2:6-11
John 3:13-17


The Promised Land

Today’s feast embodies a great mystery. Like the people of Israel in the first reading, we are called to a long journey to the Promised Land of heaven. Like them, we can lose patience and fall into sin, sin that can literally kill us (Numbers 21:4-5). Like them, our only hope for salvation is to cling to God’s merciful provision.

Pope Benedict XVI summed it up beautifully in a 2008 homily given in Lourdes:

“The Gospel for this feast reminds us of the meaning of this great mystery: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that men might be saved (Jn 3:16). The Son of God became vulnerable, assuming the condition of a slave, obedient even to death, death on a cross (cf. Phil 2:8). By his Cross we are saved. The instrument of torture which, on Good Friday, manifested God’s judgment on the world, has become a source of life, pardon, mercy, a sign of reconciliation and peace. ‘In order to be healed from sin, gaze upon Christ crucified!’ said Saint Augustine.”
 
By raising our eyes towards the Crucified one, we adore him who came to take upon himself the sin of the world and to give us eternal life.

And the Church invites us proudly to lift up this glorious Cross so that the world can see the full extent of the love of the Crucified one for all, for us men. She invites us to give thanks to God because from a tree which brought death, life has burst out anew.

On this wood Jesus reveals to us his sovereign majesty, he reveals to us that he is exalted in glory. Yes, “Come, let us adore him!” In our midst is he who loved us even to giving his life for us, he who invites every human being to draw near to him with trust.

On Today’s Gospel

Posted: September 13, 2025 by CatholicJules in Personal Thoughts & Reflections
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Our own personal testimonies are powerful witnesses to the love of Christ. After all, many of us have led very sinful lives. But after knowing Christ, we realize how much He loved us, and that He was patiently waiting for us. And when we had chosen to surrender ourselves to Him, we were transformed from within by Him. We were no longer the same. We became a new creation in Him. That is why we bear powerful witness to the love of Christ by our own personal testimonies.

Then as we move forward to glorify the Lord by our lives, we must remain steadfast and build our faith upon our rock, Christ Jesus our Lord. Only then can we bear much fruit for Him, and people can see from our demeanor, our actions, whether or not we reflect the face of Christ in all that we say and do. While nothing is hidden from the Lord God. Yet we want others to see Him in us, for who we are.  We are all children of God, our Heavenly Father, so loved by Him bearing His likeness and image. Amen.

Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop, Doctor pray for us…


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First reading
1 Timothy 1:15-17 ·


Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners

Here is a saying that you can rely on and nobody should doubt: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. I myself am the greatest of them; and if mercy has been shown to me, it is because Jesus Christ meant to make me the greatest evidence of his inexhaustible patience for all the other people who would later have to trust in him to come to eternal life. To the eternal King, the undying, invisible and only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.






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Gospel
Luke 6:43-49


Whoever hears me builds his house on a rock

Jesus said to his disciples:
    ‘There is no sound tree that produces rotten fruit, nor again a rotten tree that produces sound fruit. For every tree can be told by its own fruit: people do not pick figs from thorns, nor gather grapes from brambles. A good man draws what is good from the store of goodness in his heart; a bad man draws what is bad from the store of badness. For a man’s words flow out of what fills his heart.
    ‘Why do you call me, “Lord, Lord” and not do what I say?
    ‘Everyone who comes to me and listens to my words and acts on them – I will show you what he is like. He is like the man who when he built his house dug, and dug deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man who built his house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!’