Sorrow Lifts Us Up:
Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2025
September 14, 2025
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Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 78; Philippians 2:6-11; John 3:13-17
This Feast of the Holy Cross reminds us that the Cross, the instrument of sorrow, suffering, and defeat, leads to exaltation. Moses understood that his people needed lifting up because many of them quickly fell into criticism, despair, and helplessness. Their memories were short and they forgot how Moses led them away from slavery to a new freedom. Moses saw that they needed a savior because they could not cope well with their human nature and they lost sight of the blessings in front of them. To escape from hunger and pain, he helped to lift them up – a prefiguring of the Cross.
We have people in our lives who grumble much of the time. Some do not feel respected, heard, or valued, and there is little that we can say to raise their minds to see a more hopeful view. They do not realize that their grumbling turns people away from them and does not give them the validation they seek. We seek it too when there is a slight reference to politics. Immediately, some people get enraged, make aggressive comments, and fill the air with bitterness. It is not fun to be around these people. They, like the ancient Israelites, need lifting up.
This feast reminds us that we must enter into our crosses and let them shape us. It is only when we acknowledge the pain and sorrow of our cross and deal with it before we can be lifted up. Sometimes our pains are like a quiet ache that does not go away no matter how we try to avoid it, and we cannot rush past this pain, or numb it, squash it, or hide it. We certainly cannot fix it on our own. Richard Rohr, in his latest book, The Tears of Things, writes that “beneath every act of violence, broken system, betrayal, or loss, there is something deeper than outrage. There is sorrow.”
He counsels that we must pay attention to that sorrow and embrace it. Jesus did not look away from the cross or harden his heart to survive his terrible ordeal. He experienced pain, so it could speak to him. We are invited to notice what hurts us so we can listen much more deeply than we are accustomed to doing. We must know the wound that we carry because that is where the light gets in and transformation takes place. We must ask ourselves, “What hurts in me right now?” We cannot be looking at the pain others cause us. We must examine the pain without letting it poison us. We must gaze upon it, examine it, feel it, and let it speak to us – because it will be very honest. It will respect the truth. Our heartbreak will teach us what matters. The Cross will have done its work.
The work of the Cross today is about having compassion and courage. It is not about being strong; it is about being vulnerable enough to be human, and in our most basic humanity, we will encounter God’s reality. The Cross is not a symbol of human power, ability, or glory, but one of transformation and healing and the restoration of right relationships through a radical love. The courage that we pray for is rooted in something very deep and guttural. It does not heed fear or seek approval. It is much more potent because it is real and life-sustaining and it reaches naturally upwards to God. It is the point in which God lifts us up and acts as our Savior. The Cross, the instrument of sorrow, faithfully brings us to glory and exaltation in the only eyes that matter – the gaze of our loving God.
Scripture for Daily Mass
Monday: (1 Timothy 2) For there is one God. There is also one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as ransom for all.
Tuesday: (1 Timothy 3) Therefore, a bishop must be irreproachable, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, decent, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not aggressive, but gentle, not contentious, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well.
Wednesday: (1 Timothy 3) Undeniably great is the mystery of devotion, who was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed to the Gentiles, believed in throughout the world, taken up in glory.
Thursday: (1 Timothy 4) Let no one have contempt for your youth, but set an example for those who believe, in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. Until I arrive, attend to the reading, exhortation, and teaching.
Friday (1 Timothy 6) Teach and urge these things. Whoever teaches something different
and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the religious teaching is conceited, understanding nothing, and has a morbid disposition for arguments and verbal disputes.
Saturday (1 Timothy 6) I charge you before God to keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ that the blessed and only ruler will make manifest at the proper time.
Gospel:
Monday: (John 19) "Woman, behold, your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.
Tuesday: (Luke 7) Jesus journeyed to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him. As he drew near to the gate of the city, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. A large crowd from the city was with her.
Wednesday (Luke 7) "To what shall I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another, 'We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.'
Thursday (Luke 7) Now there was a sinful woman in the city who learned that he was at table in the house of the Pharisee. Bringing an alabaster flask of ointment, she stood behind him at his feet weeping and began to bathe his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with the ointment.
Friday (Luke 8) Accompanying him were the Twelve and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, Susanna, and many others.
Saturday (Luke 8) A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path and was trampled, and the birds of the sky ate it up. Some seed fell on rocky ground, and when it grew, it withered for lack of moisture.
Saints of the Week
September 14: The Triumph of the Holy Cross remembers the finding of the true cross by the Emperor Constantine's mother, Helen in early 4th century. Two churches were dedicated in the name of the cross on this day in the 4th century. Therefore, the feast was applied to this day. In the 7th century, the feast was renamed, "The Triumph." The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 335 was also dedicated on this day.
September 15: Our Lady of Sorrows was once called the Seven Sorrows of Mary as introduced by the Servite Friars. After suffering during his captivity in France, Pius VII renamed the devotion that encapsulates: Simeon's prophecy, the flight into Egypt, searching for Jesus at age 12 in the Temple, the road to Calvary, the crucifixion, the deposition, and the entombment.
September 16: Cornelius, pope and martyr (d. 253) and Cyprian, bishop and martyr (200-258) both suffered in the Decian persecutions. Cornelius was being attacked by Novatian, but since Novatian's teachings were condemned, he received the support of the powerful bishop, Cyprian. Cyprian was a brilliant priest and bishop of Carthage who wrote on the unity of the church, the role of bishops, and the sacraments. Cyprian died under Valerius after supporting his church in exile by letters of encouragement.
September 17: Robert Bellarmine, S.J., bishop and doctor (1542-1621) became a Jesuit professor at the Louvain and then professor of Controversial theology at the Roman College. He wrote "Disputations on the controversies of the Christian faith against the Heretics of this age," which many Protestants appreciated because of its balanced reasoning. He revised the Vulgate bible, wrote catechisms, supervised the Roman College and the Vatican library, and was the pope's theologian.
September 19: Januarius, bishop and martyr (d. 305), was bishop of Benevento during his martyrdom during the Diocletian persecution. He was arrested when he tried to visit imprisoned Christians. Legend tells us that a vial that contains his blood has been kept in the Naples cathedral since the 15th century liquefies three times a year.
September 20: Andrew Kim Taegon, priest, martyr, Paul Hasang, martyr, and companion martyrs (19th century), were Korean martyrs that began to flourish in the early 1800’s. The church leadership was almost entirely lay run. In 1836, Parisian missionaries secretly entered the country, and Christians began to encounter hostility and persecutions. Over 10,000 Christians were killed. Taegon was the first native-born priest while the rest were 101 lay Christians.
This Week in Jesuit History
- September 14, 1596. The death of Cardinal Francis Toledo, the first of the Society to be raised to the purple. He died at age 63, a cardinal for three years.
- September 15, 1927. Thirty-seven Jesuits arrived in Hot Springs, North Carolina, to begin tertianship. The property was given to the Jesuits by the widow of the son of President Andrew Johnson.
- September 16, 1883. The twenty-third General Congregation opened at Rome in the Palazzo Borromeo (via del Seminario). It elected Fr. Anthony Anderledy Vicar General with the right of succession.
- September 17, 1621. The death of St Robert Bellarmine, bishop and doctor of the Church.
- September 18, 1540. At Rome, Pedro Ribadeneira, aged fourteen, was admitted into the Society by St Ignatius (nine days before official papal confirmation of the Society).
- September 19, 1715. At Quebec, the death of Fr. Louis Andre, who for 45 years labored in the missions of Canada amid incredible hardships, often living on acorns, a kind of moss, and the rind of fruits.
- September 20, 199. The first-ever Congregation of Provincials met at Loyola, Spain on the occasion of the 450th anniversary of the approval of the Society and 500th anniversary of the birth of St. Ignatius.
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