Exaltation of the WTC Cross
Sept. 14: Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
September 14, 2008, Exaltation of the Holy Cross
Numbers 21:4-9 Philippians 2:6-11 John 3:13-17
To the churched and unchurched[1]
gathered in a temple not built by human hands[2]
First reading: Num 21:4-9
With their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!” In punishment the LORD sent among the people poisonous snakes, which bit the people so that many of them died. Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you. Pray the LORD to take the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses, “Make a poisonous snake and lift it up on a pole, and if any who have been bitten looks up at it, they will live.” Moses accordingly made a bronze snake and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a snake looked up at the bronze snake, he lived.
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 lifted Him up and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Alleluia, alleluia.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John 3:13-17
Glory to you, Lord.
A reading from the holy Gospel according to John 3:13-17
Glory to you, Lord.
Jesus said to Nicodemus: “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. 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.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Introduction
A feast day of the Lord
The finding of Jesus' cross
In the Eastern Church, this feast commemorates the finding of the holy cross by St. Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, in the early fourth century. It commemorates also the recovery of the true cross in 629, which had been carried off by the Persians in 614.
The exalting of Jesus’ cross
The feast is also about the exalting of the holy cross. The old Latin missal of the Roman Church titled it In Exaltatione Sanctae Crucis - Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. [3] The word is exalting (not exulting)[4], and it means “a lifting up.” There is an exalting – a lifting up - in all three readings today. In the first, God orders Moses to fashion a bronze snake, put it on a pole and lift it up so that all those bitten by snakes might gaze upon it and be healed. (Num 21:4-9) In the second, Paul exhorts us to be like the humble Christ who was obedient even unto death upon a cross. “Because of that God has greatly exalted Him [has greatly lifted Him up] giving Him a name which is above every other name….” (Phil 2:6-11) In the gospel, Jesus, speaking of His impending death upon the cross, tells Nicodemus that, “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 might be saved.” (Jn 3: 3-17)
On this feast day Byzantine Christians carry a cross (decorated with flowers and sweet smelling basil leaves) in solemn procession around the church three times to a station. There it is solemnly lifted up for adoration. At each of the three exaltations the choir chants “Lord have mercy” one hundred times. After that, the liturgy of the Eucharist follows. Byzantine Christians repeat this September rite of lifting up the cross on the third Sunday of Lent.
On this feast day Byzantine Christians carry a cross (decorated with flowers and sweet smelling basil leaves) in solemn procession around the church three times to a station. There it is solemnly lifted up for adoration. At each of the three exaltations the choir chants “Lord have mercy” one hundred times. After that, the liturgy of the Eucharist follows. Byzantine Christians repeat this September rite of lifting up the cross on the third Sunday of Lent.
The finding of the WTC cross
On Wednesday, September 13, 2001, two days after the apocalyptic event of 9/11 and the day before the feast of the finding of the true cross, a huge steel cross-beam was found in the rubble of the World Trade Center (WTC) by construction worker Frank Silecchia. It was standing straight, 20-feet high. It was not simply a cross-beam remaining from an existing building. It was formed out of beams from Building One plunging, splitting and crashing into Building Six. After finding the cross-beam, construction workers, firefighters, police officers and family members began holding weekly Sunday services before it. The names of fallen police officers and firefighters were scribbled on the cross, along with the message "God Bless Our Fallen Brothers."
The exalting of the WTC cross
Silecchia led Father Brian Jordan, a Franciscan friar, to Ground Zero. "It was astounding," Jordan said. "When he showed it to me, I was an instant believer." On October 4, 2001, feast of St. Francis of Assisi, Firefighters, police officers, construction workers, rescue personnel, Port Authority officers and others all gathered at the 20-foot-tall cross to watch Father Jordan bless it and pray for "the healing mercy of God on all Americans.” Then Silecchia and Jordan agreed the cross should be preserved as a permanent memorial, and they contacted the deputy mayor of NYC to make arrangements. The cross-beam was removed from the wreckage, affixed by ironworkers to a permanent base, then was lifted up in a prominent spot at Ground Zero.
Journey out of Gound Zero
Journey out of Gound Zero
The cross moved on.
On Thursday, October 5, 2006 the 2-ton cross was moved on a flatbed truck in solemn procession for a three-block trip to a new temporary home where it was lifted up to face Ground Zero outside the 18th-century church of St. Peter - the city's oldest Roman Catholic parish. A procession of victims' families, clergy and construction workers followed the cross to St. Peter's. Five years before, that church, rattled but intact after the attack of 9/11, became a temporary morgue. There firefighters reverently laid the body of one of their own - Franciscan friar, Fr. Mychal Judge. He was a chaplain for the New York City Fire Department and lost his life in the pandemonium of 9/11, as he was administering the Last Sacrament to a victim. Fr. Jordan, in Franciscan habit and cinctured with white cord, led the procession to the temporary resting place, just as he had led the effort to preserve the cross-beam found by construction worker Frank Silecchia five years before. The cross-beam will return to Ground Zero and be lifted up in the $1 billion WTC Museum when it opens in 2013 or 2014.
An inscription at the top of Jesus’ cross
At the head of the cross of Jesus on Calvary there was an inscription:
INRI
Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum
Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.
Conclusion
Conclusion
An inscription at the foot of the WTC cross At the foot of the cross, waiting to return to Ground Zero and be lifted up in the new WTC Museum, there is also an inscription:
THE CROSS AT GROUND ZERO
FOUNDED (sic!) SEPT.13, 2001
BLESSED OCT. 4, 2001
TEMPORARILY RELOCATED
OCT. 5, 2006
WILL RETURN TO WTC MUSEUM
A SIGN OF COMFORT FOR
ALL
FOUNDED (sic!) SEPT.13, 2001
BLESSED OCT. 4, 2001
TEMPORARILY RELOCATED
OCT. 5, 2006
WILL RETURN TO WTC MUSEUM
A SIGN OF COMFORT FOR
ALL
[1]] By the “the unchurched” is especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church has left!
[4] Exaltation means lifting up, while exultation means rejoicing.
