20260914 CALLED TO SERVE. COME CELEBRATE!
14 September 2026, Monday, Exaltation of the Holy Cross
irst reading | Numbers 21:4-9 |
If anyone was bitten by a serpent, he looked up at the bronze serpent and lived
On the way through the wilderness the people lost patience. They spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt to die in this wilderness? For there is neither bread nor water here; we are sick of this unsatisfying food.’
At this God sent fiery serpents among the people; their bite brought death to many in Israel. The people came and said to Moses, ‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Intercede for us with the Lord to save us from these serpents.’ Moses interceded for the people, and the Lord answered him, ‘Make a fiery serpent and put it on a standard. If anyone is bitten and looks at it, he shall live.’ So Moses fashioned a bronze serpent which he put on a standard, and if anyone was bitten by a serpent, he looked at the bronze serpent and lived.
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 77(78):1-2,34-38 |
Never forget the deeds of the Lord.
Give heed, my people, to my teaching;
turn your ear to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable
and reveal hidden lessons of the past.
Never forget the deeds of the Lord.
When he slew them then they would seek him,
return and seek him in earnest.
They would remember that God was their rock,
God the Most High their redeemer.
Never forget the deeds of the Lord.
But the words they spoke were mere flattery;
they lied to him with their lips.
For their hearts were not truly with him;
they were not faithful to his covenant.
Never forget the deeds of the Lord.
Yet he who is full of compassion
forgave them their sin and spared them.
So often he held back his anger
when he might have stirred up his rage.
Never forget the deeds of the Lord.
When a Feast of the Lord falls on a weekday, there is no reading after the Psalm and before the Gospel.
Gospel Acclamation |
Alleluia, alleluia!
We adore you, O Christ,
and we bless you;
because by your cross
you have redeemed the world.
Alleluia!
Gospel | John 3:13-17 |
God sent his Son so that through him the world might be saved
Jesus said to Nicodemus:
‘No one has gone up to heaven
except the one who came down from heaven,
the Son of Man who is in heaven;
and the Son of Man must be lifted up
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.
Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost
but may have eternal life.
For God sent his Son into the world
not to condemn the world,
but so that through him the world might be saved.’
CALLED TO SERVE. COME CELEBRATE!
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [NUMBERS 21:4-9; PHILIPPIANS 2:6-11; JOHN 3:13-17]
Today, we do not simply celebrate the Feast of the Holy Cross, but the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The cross by itself cannot save us. In fact, the cross alone portrays a negative image of God and of life–that our God is helpless in the face of evil, injustice, and sin. If that were so, then the cross would seek only to condemn us rather than to save us. This is why we celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross: because this cross raised Jesus high above the earth and brought Him into heaven–and not only Himself, but all of us with Him through His suffering and death on the cross.
Because of the cross of our Lord, we know for certain that God is love, because the One who died on the cross is not just a man, but the God-man. The cross reveals to us the love of God–a love that identifies with our pain and suffering, a love that suffers the consequences of sin, even though He had done no wrong (1 Jn 3:5; 2 Cor 5:21). To look at the cross is to look at the amazing love of God. Indeed, St. John captures God’s love beautifully in the Gospel text we have just read: “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven; and the Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved.”
To celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross means that we, too, are called to save ourselves by imitating our Lord on the Cross. We, too, must be lifted up so that we can find salvation and true freedom from all that weighs us down, especially our sin and selfishness. In the final analysis, as the theme of our celebration– “called to serve”–suggests, to celebrate the cross means to serve like our Lord in humility, selflessness, and without conditions. Indeed, in the Gospel, the Lord said to His apostles: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?” (Mt 16:24-26). He reiterated this toward the end of His life when they were fighting for position. He said: “It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mt 20:26-28).
What is the obstacle to genuine service, if not discontentment and pride? In the First Reading, we have the Israelites who were traveling through the wilderness to the Promised Land. They lost patience and “spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt to die in this wilderness? For there is neither bread nor water here: we are sick of this unsatisfying food.'” Very quickly, they forgot what God had done for them–how, with His mighty arm, He set them free from slavery under the Egyptians. Very soon, they began comparing their former life in Egypt with life in the wilderness.
We all have short memories. The truth is that the people’s hearts had not changed, despite what God had done for them. In spite of the victories God gave them over the Egyptians and over their enemies, the Canaanites, they grumbled against God. Just like them, our hearts are never content with whatever we have. We tend to be inward-looking, always dissatisfied with our lives, and worse still, blaming others for the situation we are in. Instead of looking into our own hearts to discover the selfishness and greed within ourselves, we blame others for our unhappiness. The point is that our hearts cannot be satisfied merely by fulfilling our physical, psychological, or emotional needs; only in God alone can our hearts find rest.
This shows that the human heart is basically the same: selfish, inward-looking, and ungrateful because of original sin. “At this, God sent fiery serpents among the people; their bite brought death to many in Israel.” The serpents that bit them to death remind us of how Satan tempted our first parents to commit the sin of disobedience and pride. They were deceived by the ultimate enemy of humanity. The wages of sin and unbelief is death. They were cast out of the garden into the desert. In fact, it would be wrong to think that God takes revenge on our sins. Rather, we suffer the effects of our own sins. As St. Paul says: “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit” (Gal 6:7-8). Indeed, it was not the Lord who brought them into the wilderness to die; it was the result of their own sin and their refusal to submit to the Lord.
Truly, the serpents that bite us are the natural consequences of our own bitter and ungrateful attitudes. When we allow a spirit of constant complaining, cynicism, and entitlement to take root in our hearts, it acts like venom. It poisons our relationships. It poisons our marriages. It poisons our parish communities. It kills our joy, kills our peace, and leaves us spiritually dry and dying in the wilderness. The Responsorial Psalm breaks into this darkness like a gentle, pleading reminder from a loving parent: “Never forget the deeds of the Lord.” Healing begins the moment we stop focusing on what we think we lack and start remembering how faithful God has already been to us, focusing above all on His compassion.
So how did the Lord heal them of the effects of their sin and the consequence of death? “The people came and said to Moses, ‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Intercede for us with the Lord to save us from these serpents.’ Moses interceded for the people, and the Lord answered him, ‘Make a fiery serpent and put it on a standard. If anyone is bitten and looks at it, he shall live.’ So Moses fashioned a bronze serpent which he put on a standard, and if anyone was bitten by a serpent, he looked at the bronze serpent and lived.” What cured them was not the serpent on the pole, but their faith and obedience to God’s command. By looking intently at the bronze serpent and trusting in God’s power over evil, they were healed. They remembered once again the deeds of the Lord for them.
Of course, the serpent on the pole is also an invitation to contemplate our Lord lifted up on the cross. It is the symbol of self-emptying. Jesus emptied Himself of His divinity by becoming man, and then emptied Himself a second time by becoming a servant unto death on the cross. On the cross, Jesus emptied Himself in humility, sharing in our suffering and death so that He could lead us beyond the narrow confines of sin and death into the glory of His kingdom. Jesus became vulnerable for us and suffered our pain so that no one could accuse Him of being unable to empathise with us in our suffering. He showed how truly He is one with us when He faced rejection, humiliation, persecution, envy, betrayal, shame, and false accusation. Yet He gave His life for us in humble service–healing the sick, freeing those possessed by the Evil One, and showing us the way to His Father’s Kingdom.
Today, we are called to do the same. Contemplating the cross, we too are called to heal the wounds of others using the very wounds we have suffered ourselves. We are called to bring those wounds to the foot of the cross. We must empty ourselves of the need for recognition in service, and let go of our pride so that we may serve others unconditionally and without expectations of reward. It means sharing the cross of Christ through a lifestyle of radical humility, putting others before ourselves. This demands great sacrifice and a dying to self that is only possible if we contemplate the victorious cross of our Lord over sin and death. So let us serve humbly in the church, in our communities, in our homes, and in our workplaces. This is the Lord’s promise when He said: “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour” (Jn 12:26). Indeed, through humble and selfless service, we celebrate the victory of the cross in our lives because we have conquered ourselves. Sharing in the life of Christ, we too can be assured that with Him, we will be raised up on High so that we, too, may “bend the knee at the name of Jesus, and that every tongue should acclaim Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Best Practices for Using the Daily Scripture Reflections
- Encounter God through the spirit of prayer and the scripture by reflecting and praying the Word of God daily. The purpose is to bring you to prayer and to a deeper union with the Lord on the level of the heart.
- Daily reflections when archived will lead many to accumulate all the reflections of the week and pray in one sitting. This will compromise your capacity to enter deeply into the Word of God, as the tendency is to read for knowledge rather than a prayerful reading of the Word for the purpose of developing a personal and affective relationship with the Lord.
- It is more important to pray deeply, not read widely. The current reflections of the day would be more than sufficient for anyone who wants to pray deeply and be led into an intimacy with the Lord.
Note: You may share this reflection with someone. However, please note that reflections are not archived online nor will they be available via email request.
Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
