“The Double Lifting Up that Is the Way to Heaven”
Homily for Ordination to the Diaconate for the Order of Preachers
September 14, 2024 (Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross)
St. Dominic’s Church, San Francisco
Introduction
The story is told of the Persian King Heraclius who, after recovering the True Cross that had been brought to his homeland by his predecessor fourteen years before, returned it to Jerusalem. It is said that that he arrived at the city gate bedecked in robes adorned with gold and precious stones, but then suddenly stopped, frozen still at the gate which led to Mount Calvary. He was somehow fixed on the spot and couldn’t move, all the more so the more that he tried.
All were astounded. But it is said that the Bishop of Jerusalem at the time, Zacharias, exhorted the King: “consider, O emperor, how little you imitate the poverty and humility of Jesus Christ, by carrying the Cross clad in triumphal robes.” So the Persian king removed his magnificent apparel, put on the clothes of a lowly peasant, and, barefoot, easily completed the rest of the way, and replaced the Cross in the same place on Mount Calvary from where it had been carried off by his co-nationals. We celebrate today the feast day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and this miraculous event is what gave great impetus to this feast day spreading throughout the Church with such great devotion.[1]
The Lesson of the Cross
The lesson learned and demonstrated by the great Persian king is, of course, the lesson of the Cross. He could not be worthy of carrying the Cross without bringing himself low. And in being a great king who associates with the lowly, he images the person of Jesus Christ himself, as recounted in the great Christological hymn we hear from St. Paul in his Letter to the Philippians: “Jesus Christ, 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.” Jesus Christ joins together disparate forces: the lowly with the exalted, the human with the divine, the mournful with the glorious.
What healed God’s people in the Sinai Desert of the bites of the saraph serpents? This is what we are told in the Book of Numbers: “Moses … made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.” Moses lifted up the bronze serpent in the Sinai Desert to heal the people from the bites of the serpents: the bronze serpent has the figure of the serpent but not the venom. Similarly with Christ: he saves us from the bite of the devil by taking on human flesh, but remaining without sin. Thus, as Pope Adrian I commented with regard to the bronze serpent as a figure of Christ, “the figure afforded the temporal life; the thing itself, of which it was the figure, life eternal.”[2]
The Plan Fulfilled
We see God here working out His wonderful plan of salvation, both hiding and revealing in figures of the Old Covenant what would come to pass for our eternal salvation in the New and Eternal Covenant sealed in the blood of His Son. In doing so, He sets the pattern for us to follow in order to gain eternal salvation. Notice how our Lord speaks of himself being “lifted up,” as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert. The New Testament uses this verb, hupsoun, to “lift up,” in two senses in reference to Jesus: being lifted up on the Cross, and being lifted up into glory at the time of his Ascension into heaven.[3]
We see both of these senses of the verb reflected in the readings for this Mass of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross: Jesus speaking of himself being “lifted up” on the Cross, as we find elsewhere in John’s Gospel; and the “lifting up” of which St. Paul speaks in this great Christological hymn (“Because of this, God greatly exalted him” [i.e., lifted him up – it is the same verb used here]).
This double lifting up is the way of the Cross. It is the uniting of what is disparate and, in our limited human vision even contradictory, into the pattern of salvation, because there is no way to salvation without emptying ourselves of ourselves as Christ emptied himself of his claim to divinity and became one of us.
Earthly Figures of Heaven
We who are still in this world, members of the Church militant living in hope that, by God’s grace, we will arrive at communion with the Church triumphant, still, in a sense, live in a world of figures. We need such figures to reveal to us the life of heaven, what that life is like and how we can already begin to reflect the life of heaven here in this world. This is why Christ left his Church the gift of the sacraments, such figures that both hide and reveal to us the grace of God.
Today we have the great joy of celebrating the sacrament of Holy Orders, the order of the diaconate for these brothers of ours. Of the threefold gift that is diaconal ministry in the Church – the ministry of the word, of the altar and of charity – it is the gift of charity that truly stands out as the distinguishing mark of the role of the deacon. It is, indeed, the first of the ordination promises that a cleric makes, after promising his resolve to be ordained: “Do you resolve to discharge the office of deacon with humble charity in order to assist the priestly Order and to benefit the Christian people?
Charity, this is the key: it is the way to heaven, the way of heaven, and it is the life of heaven. It is true, humble charity – living with self-disinterest for the good of the other – that most reveals to us the life of heaven, and how we can already begin to experience that heavenly life here on earth. And this is why you, my brothers, now being ordained to the order of deacon, take on a further mark that teaches us this lesson of the life of heaven: you do so within the vows of the evangelical councils, bound by the rule of a religious order, the Order of Preachers. Not that life in a religious community is automatically heaven on earth!
What this means is that what you vow in binding yourself to the rule with your brothers in religion is to live apart from all that is passing away in this world: in heaven all are as poor as Francis of Assisi, all as chaste Maria Goretti, all as obedient in conscience to God’s will as Thomas More. Exercising these vows in diaconal ministry brings an idea, an ideal, into concrete reality: charity is the incarnation of poverty, chastity and obedience, the incarnation of love. It is a gift which you will also bring with you, God willing, into the Priesthood, as you will realize this gift in a new way by making present on the altar Christ’s self-emptying sacrifice of humble charity.
Conclusion
If we want to live in heaven here and now, the solution is quite simple: we simply need to strive to outdo each other in charity. Simple, though, does not mean easy! But the more we practice it, the less difficult it becomes. King Heraclius discovered that when he put aside his claim to royal glory and imitated the poverty and humility of Jesus Christ. He was then worthy to carry the Cross.
That was his double lifting up, in imitation of our Lord himself: his kensosis, emptying himself to take on human flesh all the way to death on the Cross, and so being lifted up to the life of heaven in his return to his Father in glory. May it be so for you, too, my dear brothers, as you put aside all claims to earthly glory in order to live already now in anticipation of the only glory that really matters: the humble charity of our Lord Jesus Christ, who by it wins for us the gift of eternal life.
[1] Recounted in Abbot Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, v. 14: Time After Pentecost Book V, 4th ed. Rev. Dom Laurence Shepherd (trans.) (Great Falls, Montana: St. Bonaventure Publications, 2000) p. 200-201.
[2] The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide, The Holy Gospel According to Saint John Thomas W. Mossman (trans.) (Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire: Loreto Publications, 2008) p. 113.
[3] William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series Revised Edition: The Gospel of John, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1977) pp. 134-135.