A Mystic-Theological Meditation on the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Fr John Okoro Egbulefu CCE, Rome, 14 Sept 2026

@1 The Holy Cross the exaltation of which we are celebrating this day is that on which Christ was crucified and which is called ‘Holy Cross’ (Sancta Crux) because on it as on a Wood took place that sacrificial death of Christ through which Christ has redeemed the world (“We adore You O Christ and we praise You, because by Your Holy Cross You have redeemed the world,” common antiphon to the meditation and prayer at each of the fourteen different stations passed through during the Via Crucis, Stations of the Cross) and the stations of which we yearly do every Friday in the whole period of Lent beginning with the first Friday immediately after the Ash Wednesday of each year.

@2 The Crucified Body of Christ as the Body fixed on the Cross (Crux) is the Crucifix which we Catholics kiss on Good Friday during the Holy Week.

The crucified Body of Christ is visible sign of an invisible reality that the human spirit of the Son of Man that exited from the mortal body of Christ at the moment of the death of the body is like a bird on a flight, whereby the head of the bird is represented/symbolized by the human head of the crucified Son of Man which is resting on the upper and shorter half of the vertical dimension of the Cross of Christ, while the two outspread wings of the bird on flight are represented by the two outspread, left and right, hands of the Son of Man which are nailed separately from one another to the two, left and right, halves respectively of the horizontal dimension of the Cross, whereas the main body of the bird is represented by the central part of the back body of the crucified Son of Man which is resting on the central part of the lower and longer half of the vertical dimension of the Cross of Christ, while the two closed legs of the bird on flight are represented by the two crossed, left and right, legs of the Son of Man lying one on top of the other and which are nailed inseparably nailed together with one another to the lowest part of the lower and longer half of the vertical dimension of the Cross of Christ.

The crucifixion is the method by which the death on the Cross is effected. The Cross as Wood alone does not make the Holy Cross. The Holy Cross is that Cross as Wood on which is fixed the crucified Body of Christ.

While on Good Fridays it is the passion of Christ and the crucifixion that are commemorated, in the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross that is being celebrated today it is the Cross itself as the sign of salvation and used in the crucifixion of Jesus that is being commemorated.

@3 The death of Christ on the Cross was a sacrifice, i.e. the acts of immolation and of libation. The Immolation consisting in the piercing or perforation of his body with the lance, the nails and the thorns) and of libation (as pouring forth, through the oozing, gushing out, flowing and dropping down, of blood from the openings on the pierced or perforated body).

The death of Christ on the Cross is also an act maximal love, for its the act of giving His life up for His friends, and greater love than this there is none that one gives up one’s life for one’s friends.

The greatest love that one can show to others lies in giving not just one’s sweat and tears but rather one’s blood and thus one’s life, hence the whole of oneself, and accepting to be killed and die in their stead, as a ransom for their release, to die that they may not die but live on. Yet the greatest love for oneself is to save oneself from going to hell by seeking with the grace of God the face of God, the communication and union with God, and the re-entry into the luminous bosom of God from which God has originally called out the human being into existence and within which Man can participate in that eternal banquet which God has called for the sake of the resurrection of His Son from the dead and to which He has invited all men of Goodwill, and which consists in man’s participation in the divine life as life of the eternal love for one another, eternal joy at one another, eternal glorification of one another and eternal peace with one another which is eternally going on inside God among the three persons in the numerically one God, namely the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit who jointly created man in the image and likeness of themselves for the purpose of having something in common with him on which to build up that communion as the synthesis of communication and union in which consists the salvation of man as a divine-human event.

@4 The Exaltation of the Holy Cross (so is today’s feast named in the official translation of the Roman Missal), while the 1973 translation names it The Triumph of the Cross.

@4a) The Christ whose Cross is exalted is the one who had earlier before He was crucified, made the promise: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself” (Jn 12:32). And the uplifted Christ is the victoriously resurrected Christ the Lord (Christus Dominus), the triumphant Lord Jesus (Dominus Jesus), the One who after He had been raised from the land of the dead in the underworld back to the land of the living on earth and further ascended from the land of the living on earth back to His Father in heaven is drawing all to Himself, as He earlier promised, He is the One who, ever true to His promises, has, ever since He returned to heaven, embarked on drawing, pulling, from above upwards, especially His faithful who are on earth heavenwards to Himself and, through Him, to the Father from whom every goodness comes, to His Father as our Heavenly Father who, in answer to the request of His Son, has sent the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, hence as the lifegiving Spirit and Spirit of truth, to drive, push, the same faithful of Christ on earth from below upwards towards Christ and the Father in heaven.

These Christfaithful who are being contemporaneously pulled from above by the heavenly Christ and pushed from below by the Holy Spirit upwards to heaven are those believers in God who have passed from the nightly (nocturnal) religious experience of feeling God but not hearing His voice or word, an experience made in the natural religions, through their early morning (auroral) experience of hearing the voice and word of God but without seeing Him, an experience made in the old testamentary Jewish religion, and their midday (meridian) experience of seeing God in broad day light but without tasting Him, an experience made in the New Testament by the unbelieving Jews, to the evening or vespertine experience of tasting God in His incarnate Son and, seeing that He is good, seeking to possess Him, but without being able to do so, since eternal life can only be attained in heaven where God the Father lives it together with His Son and the Holy Spirit, whereby the tasted and sweet Son of God, through His goodness and sweetness attracts, draws, pulls, to Himself the human taster continuously and regressively, leaving the fascinated human taster to strive, but only asymptotically (ever nearer but never reaching approaching but ever yet to be reached) after the possessions of Him till well back into the deep but luminous bosom of the triune God from where the three eternal persons in the numerically one God have originally called the human being out into existence, and whereby only when the human being returns into this deep and luminous bosom of the divine Trinity the human being can be said to be fully saved.

@4b) The Cross as a thing in the form of an event is the method (action) by which the Crucified Christ won the battle in the underworld, attained victory, emerged triumphant, over the enemy, especially death, the devil and demons, that held the souls of humans, who had died in the state of pardonable sins, captives in purgatory wherein they were imprisoned for the debts they, before they died, had not paid of sins they committed on earth, and into where the Crucified Christ descended to preach the good News to the dead which, as the truth that liberates, freed them from the bond of the evil One, Satan, the chain of ignorance, sin, sickness, poverty, and death.

@4c) The Cross as a thing in the form of an object is the tool, weapon, instrument of work, for fighting that decisive spiritual battle in the underworld from which Christ emerged victorious.

The exalted Cross is a raised flag, a hoisted flag, as sign of victory. Accordingly the exaltation of the Cross of Christ is the raising, the hoisting, of the flag that signifies the victory that Christ won over the devil during the battle that was fought by Him against the devil that held human souls captives in the underworld.

For immediately after the death of the mortal body of Jesus Christ on the Cross, a death that occurred when Jesus as the Son of Man breathed His last, giving up the ghost, commending His immortal human spirit into the hands of His heavenly Father in which the spirit is most safe and secure, He as the Godman descended with His immortal human soul into the underworld as that realm of the departed human souls which is called purgatory (descensus ad inferos) as the place and state in which the human souls are imprisoned for the debts they had not paid for the sins they committed on earth before they left this at the moment of the death of their mortal human body that occurred through the exit of their outbreathed immortal human spirit from their human body.

For even after the death of the human body of the incarnate Word as Godman, the eternal Word remained united directly with His human soul and only indirectly with His human body through the indissoluble union of the human body with the divine Will of the Father (that the body of holy One should remain incorruptible, thus should not see decay) and the indissoluble union of divine Will of the Father (that His Son be made man through the incarnation of the eternal Word as the union of the divine Word with the human flesh) with the eternal Word for the redemption of humanity (ranging from the liberation and healing of the fallen and entrapped humans to their restoration to the right road to God from which they had deviated and fallen away into the traps set and the ditches dug for them by the Evil One on their way to God in whom alone is Salvation to which He had invited all humans) and hence for the salvation willed for all humans by God.

Like the Blessed Virgin Mary is an instrument as person whom God in His work of giving salvation to humans has used to effect the incarnation of the Word as of the Son of God, so is the Cross the instrument as a thing which the incarnate Son of God as Son of Man in His work of effecting the redemption of the entire humanity used to sacrifice Himself to God on behalf of humans, effect that reconciliation between the offended faithful God and the unfaithful and offending humanity without which humanity eventually would not get the gift of that perennial peace that only God can gift nor get that gift of salvation that God had planned to give to every human from time immemorial and to the reception of which He had invited humans before the diabolically tempted human beings were seduced into deviations from the right path that leads to God and committed thereby the offense of disobedience to the Word of God and hence the sin of infidelity to God the Creator with the consequent disgracing of God infront of God’s enemy and adversary, namely the devil, diabolus, and its agents, the demons.

The spirit of radical obedience to the offended God the Father with which the Son of Man, who sacrificed Himself on the Cross, overpowered, overthrew and corrected the disobedience committed by Man against God has since brought with it that the Cross as instrument of the brief-accomplished work of redemption and hence of the human reception of salvation from God that presupposes such redemption has become a symbol of the instrument for the undoing of the devil’s work, even to the extent that the presence of the sign of the Cross of Christ in the form of words or actions or of object is a terror to the devil and the demons, in effect sign or symbol that signifies or symbolizes the Cross of Christ scares them.

@5 The salvation the sign and instrument of which the Cross of the crucified Christ is, is that (two-dimensional, divine-human) Communion of Man and God in which (on the one as the divine or vertical dimension) God unites Man to Himself and communicates His eternal life to Man and (on the other as the human or horizontal dimension) Man participates, shares, in the eternal life of God lived by the three persons in one God as their life of eternal love for one another, eternal joy at one another, eternal glorification of one another and eternal peace with one another.

As long as salvation is the object in view, and the Cross is instrument to capture the salvation, and the structure of the instrument must be adapted, conformed, to the structure of the object for it to be able to capture the object adequately, but the structure of salvation is bidimensional, divine-human, it follows that the structure of the Cross for the adequate capture of salvation must be bidimensional, divine-human. And because the structure of the Cross of the Crucified Christ as sign and instrument of salvation must, in correspondence to the bidimensionality of the structure of salvation, be bidimensional, divine-human, it is traditionally represented with a two-dimensional geometrical figure constituted by two lines that are contrary, opposite but not opposed, to one another and cross one another at right-angles and remain inseparably united with one another, namely the carrying vertical line that recaptures and represents the divine dimension of salvation wrought with the instrumentality of the Cross by Christ, and the carried horizontal line that recaptures and represents the human dimension of that salvation.

@6 And because the Cross of Christ is sign and instrument of salvation the Christfaithful use it as a tool to do salvific things.

@6a) “The sign of the cross is the most terrible weapon against the devil. Thus the Church wishes not only that we have it continually in front of our minds to recall to us just what our souls are worth and what they cost Jesus Christ, but also that we should make it at every juncture ourselves: when we go to bed, when we wake up during the night, when we get up, when we begin any action, and, above all, when we are tempted.” (St John Vianney)

@6b) And the Catholic Christfaithful Godbelievers in their devotional tradition make the sign of the cross be it in the form of a ceremonial, i.e. an action not accompanied simultaneously by words, be it in the form of a ritual, i.e. an action accompanied simultaneously by words. In each of the manners of doing the sign of the Cross, namely as ceremonial or as a ritual, the Catholic Christfaithful Godbelievers first touch their forehead and then their breast and then their two shoulders one after the other beginning with the left shoulder, and then close their two palms with one another. But particularly when making the sign of the Cross in the manner of a ritual they do it in such a way that the speaking of the words and the doing of the actions are contemporaneous.

@6c) As an act of devotion the making of the sign of the Cross on oneself presupposes a certain truth of faith that is thereby being professed according to the principle that what is believed underlies what is prayed and celebrated (Lex credendi Lex orandi et celebrandi).

@6ca) The proper believed truths that are professed in the religiously devotional making of the sign of the Cross are 1) that the three eternal persons of one substance who have created Man in the image of themselves are the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (hence the words spoken in making the sign of the Cross in a ritual manner “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”) and that 2) these three eternal persons of one substance have created Man proximately for a threefold purpose here on earth, namely so that man may know God (hence the action of touching the forehead as symbol of the mind with which man has to look out for God and see Him, look at Him, and focus on Him, contemplate His face, and admire Him, gain insight into Him, identify, recognize and acknowledge His presence and work and Will), love God (hence the action of touching the breast as symbol of the heart with the whole of which God is to be loved but affectively by adoring Him and effectively by doing His Will, expressed by his commands) and serve God (hence the action of touching the shoulders as symbol of carrying on the two shoulders the responsibility of working with both hands for God as servant of God) and remotely for a single purpose hereafter in heaven, namely so that may may live with God forever the divine life as life of eternal love and joy and glory and peace (hence the action of closing the two palms with one another).

@6cb) Thus the making of the sign of the Cross in a ritual manner is that aggregate of contemporaneous words and actions which stretched from the contemporaneous saying of the words “in the name of the Father” and action of touching the forehead, through the contemporaneous saying of the words “and of the Son” and action of touching the breast, and to the contemporaneous saying of the words “and of the Holy Spirit” and action of touching the two shoulders one after the other and each only once, thereby moving from the left to the right shoulder as done in the Roman Catholic Church and concludes with the contemporaneous saying of the one word “Amen” and doing the action of closing the two otherwise open palms with one another.

This quartet of rituals is a symbol, the symbol of the quartet of reasons why God created man, i.e. why He called the human being into existence here on earth and in the hereafter. God namely created man that may here on earth know Him and, with such knowledge, love Him in and out, i.e. both effectively and affectively, and with such love, serve Him, i.e. work for Him with both hands responsibly, not irresponsibly, as He wants to be served by imitating how Himself works. And the order of making the sign of the Cross in a ritual manner is irreversible. First the forehead as symbol of the mind as Seat of the human knowledge of God and then the breast as symbol of the heart as Seat of the human love for God, and then the shoulders as symbol of responsibility borne in serving the Lord by working for Him with both hands as Seat of human service to God. For the service presupposes love and not vice versa, for one can only serve well someone that the one loves. And love presupposes knowledge and not vice versa, for one can only love well someone that the one knows. And Man’s act of living with God the divine life of eternal love and joy and glory and peace hereafter in heaven presupposes the human knowledge of God, love for God and service to God here on earth and not vice versa.

@6cc) The catholic doctrine that God created man that man may know Him, love Him and serve Him in this world in order to live forever with Him hereafter in heaven, which was mentioned above can be justified with the logical argument.

1. since God created Man proximately in view of establishing His kingdom of love and of forming His royal people,

2. but what He the King wants from His people is that they fear the Lord their God, follow His ways, love Him, serve Him with all their heart and all their soul, always keep in their heart and in their soul His commandments and laws that for their good He lays down henceforth for them’ (cf. Deut 10:12-13) and ‘cling to Him’ (cf. Deut 10:20), ‘praise Him as their God for the great and terrible things He has done as they have seen with their own eyes’ (cf Deut 10:21), and teach them to their children (cf Deut 11:18-20) “to their sons who have not known or seen the lessons of the Lord their God, His greatness, the might of His hand, the strength of His arm, the signs and deeds He performed against the enemy of His people and what He did for His royal people in the wilderness, and to take care that their heart in which the royal instructions they have received must remain is not seduced and that themselves therefore do not go astray, serving other gods and worshipping them,

3. it follows that the remote reason for God’s creation of Man is that humans may here on earth know God and make Him known to others (by giving their children the knowledge of Him through teaching those of them who have not known or seen the lessons of the Lord their God, His greatness, the might of His hand, the strength of His arm), love Him (by keeping His commands and by revering Him, showing reverential fear to Him, avoiding offending Him), and serve Him (by taking care that their heart in which the royal instructions they have received must remain is not seduced and that themselves therefore do not go astray, serving other gods and worshipping them), in order to live with Him eternally hereafter in heaven.

Ad 1: To establish His kingdom of love God created the Universe (the union of the preternatural world of invisible creatures and the natural world of directly visible and only indirectly visible creatures, as the place where He as the King would reign with sovereignty, reign over and above all other beings) and created History (as the series of events that would take place in the universe during the time of His reign) and created the Angels (as His Royal ministers, His authoritative and exemplary servants) and created the human being, male and female, with His divine gift and commission to them to multiply themselves and fill the earth with human beings from among whom He would choose out a people that He, through a Holy Alliance with them, according to which He would give them eternal life if they observe His commandments, He would sanctify and constitute into a people of His own, a holy people of the King, to whom He wants to give salvation as the divine gift of eternal life to humans.

Ad 2: And what the Lord their God as the proper King in the established Kingdom of the love that God is thereby asks of His people as the royal people of God are these: to fear the Lord their God, to follow His ways, to love Him, to serve Him with all their heart and all their soul, to keep His commandments and laws that for their good He lays down henceforth for them’ (cf. Deut. 10:12-13) and ‘to cling to Him’ (cf. Deut. 10:20), ‘to praise Him as their God for the great and terrible things He has done as they have seen with their own eyes’ (cf Deut. 10:21). And ‘these injunctions, laws, customs, commandments of the Lord their God must be always kept by the royal people of God’ (cf. Deut. 11:1). And the people must keep these instructions in their human heart and in their soul, fasten the instructions on their hand as a sign and on their forehead as a circlet, write them on the doorposts of their house and on their gates, and teach them to their children (cf Deut 11:18-20) “to their sons who have not known or seen the lessons of the Lord their God, His greatness, the might of His hand, the strength of His arm, the signs and deeds He performed in Egypt itself against Pharaoh and all his land, what he did to destroy the Egyptian armies and their horses and chariots, and what He did for His royal people in the wilderness before they reached Egypt, how He got the earth open its mouth and swallow the enemy and their household and belongings in the midst of all His people’ (cf Deut 11:2-6). And the people of the King must ‘take care that their heart in which the royal instructions they have received must remain is not seduced and that themselves therefore do not go astray, serving other gods and worshipping them, otherwise the anger of God would blaze out against His disloyal people and He would shut up the heavens and the earth would be arid and unproductive and they would quickly die in the otherwise prosperous land that the Lord is giving them’ (cf. Deut 11: 16-17).

Ad 3: From the verbs in the above texts taken from the Book of Deuteronomy (chapters 10:12-13, 20-21, and 11: 1-6, 16-20), it can be and has been deduced that God created Man that Man may know Him, love Him and serve Him here on earth in order to live with Him eternally hereafter in heaven.

@7 The exaltation of the Cross of Christ occurs last not least in the moral life of the Christian as the consequence that ought be drawn from carrying one’s cross daily and following the Son of Man nailed to a Cross on which the sacrifice of our redemption has taken place and the significant exaltation of which is being celebrated this day by us Catholic Christians, before our tomorrow’s celebration of the memorial of our Lady of sorrows as our model of living out adequately the sorrowful events in the life of Christ as life lived selflessly, life lived for others, life of love, life of the greatest love on the Cross, life of giving one’s life for one’s friends, namely life of love for God and for humans by the Godman Jesus Christ emulated by His human faithful followers: on the one as the vertical dimension of the Cross it is the life of love lived by them for God with their whole soul, whole heart, whole mind and whole strength; on the other as the horizontal dimension of the Cross it the life of love lived by them for fellow humans each loving them as one loves oneself.