September 14, 2020

Exaltation of the Holy Cross 

Jn 3: 13-17

No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever 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 may not perish but may have eternal life. “ Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.

We are loved sinners

As St. Ignatius reminds us in the first week of the Spiritual Exercises, we are loved sinners.  God loves us unconditionally and with that love always comes the hope of redemption and the gift of forgiveness.  God does not demand perfection of ourselves or of this world.  What God asks of us is to love deeply and truly consider what this depth of love truly entails in how we live our lives. 

We pray that we will seek to love ourselves and one another with God’s unconditional love that consists of acts of sacrifice, generosity, forgiveness, hope, and redemption.

We pray that we will truly believe that this love from God is real and that we are saved through God’s love despite our imperfection and the sin of this world. 

And we pray that when we are in doubt that we simply seek to love.

—Dr. Sajit U. Kabadi is the Assistant Principal for Mission, Ministry, and Diversity at Regis Jesuit High School in Colorado.

Prayer

Whenever I groan within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing about love in these times of tension and strife which may, at any moment, become for us all a time of terror, I think to myself: What else is the world interested in? What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships? God is Love. Love casts out fear. Even the most ardent revolutionist, seeking to change the world, to overturn the tables of the money changers, is trying to make a world where it is easier for people to love, to stand in that relationship to each other…There can never be enough of it.

—Dorothy Day