Homily and Angelus Address for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14)

Pope Leo XIV, Homily for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14, 2025) - I glory in nothing but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ

(Memorial of the martyrs and witnesses of faith of the 21st century)

Dear brothers and sisters,

"May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal 6:14). The words of the Apostle Paul, at whose tomb we gather today, open the way for the memorial of the martyrs and witnesses of faith of the 21st century, on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

At the foot of the Holy Cross of Christ our Savior, praised as "the hope of Christians" and "the glory of the martyrs" (cf. Vespers in the Byzantine liturgy for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross), I affectionately greet the representatives of the Orthodox Churches, the Ancient Oriental Churches, other Christian communities and ecumenical organizations. I sincerely thank you for accepting the invitation to participate in this celebration. I extend to all of you here the embrace of peace!

We are convinced that witness to the point of offering one's life is "the truest communion with Christ, who shed his blood and in that sacrifice brought together those who were once far apart" (Encyclical Ut unum sint, 84). Even today, we can repeat with Saint John Paul II that: where hatred seemed to cover every aspect of life, there the courageous servants of the Gospel and the martyrs of faith have clearly demonstrated that "love is stronger than death" (Memorial of the Witnesses of Faith in the Twentieth Century, May 7, 2000).

We remember these brothers and sisters with our gaze fixed on the Crucified One. With His Cross, Jesus revealed the true face of God, His boundless mercy for humanity; He took upon Himself the hatred and violence of the world to share the fate of those who are humiliated and oppressed: "Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases" (Is 53:4).

Today, how many brothers and sisters, because of their witness of faith in difficult and hostile circumstances, are also carrying the very cross of the Lord: like Him, they are persecuted, condemned, killed. Of them, Jesus said: "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account" (Mt 5:10-11). These are men and women, religious and clergy, laity and priests, who paid with their lives to remain faithful to the Gospel, committed to justice, fighting for religious freedom where it is still trampled, living in solidarity with the poorest. By worldly standards, they seem like "failures." But in reality, as the Book of Wisdom says: "In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace. For though in the sight of others they were punished, their hope is full of immortality" (Wis 3:2-4).

Dear brothers and sisters, in this Holy Year, we celebrate the hope of these courageous witnesses of faith. It is a hope filled with eternal life, because their martyr's blood continues to sow the Gospel in a world full of hatred, violence and war; it is a hope filled with eternal life, because even though they are killed in body, no one can extinguish their voice or erase the love they have given; it is a hope filled with eternal life, because their witness remains a prophetic word announcing the victory of good over evil.

Yes, it is a hope without weapons. They witnessed to the faith without ever resorting to violence, but embraced the weak and gentle strength of the Gospel, as the Apostle Paul said: "I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. […] for whenever I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor 12:9-10).

I think of the Gospel strength of Sister Dorothy Stang, committed to the landless in the Amazon: when her would-be killer asked about weapons, she held up the Bible and replied: "This is my only weapon." I think of Father Ragheed Ganni, a Chaldean priest in Mosul, Iraq, who refused to carry a gun to witness to the way of life of a true Christian. I think of Brother Francis Tofi, an Anglican believer of the Melanesian Brotherhood, who sacrificed his life for peace in the Solomon Islands. There are many such shining examples, because, although the great dictatorships of the 20th century have ended, the persecution of Christians has not stopped to this day, and in some places has even increased.

These courageous servants of the Gospel and martyrs of faith "form as it were a great fresco of Christian humanity […]. A fresco of the Gospel Beatitudes, lived to the point of shedding blood" (Saint John Paul II, Memorial of the Witnesses of Faith in the Twentieth Century, May 7, 2000).

Dear brothers and sisters, we cannot, nor do we want to forget. We want to remember. And we do so, with the conviction that, as in the first centuries, so in this third millennium, "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of new Christians" (Tertullian). We want to preserve this memory together with our brothers and sisters from other Churches and Christian communities. I also wish to reiterate the Catholic Church's commitment to preserving the memory of witnesses of faith from all Christian traditions. The New Martyrs Commission, under the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, is carrying out this mission, in collaboration with the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity.

As we noted in the recent Synod, the ecumenism of blood unites "Christians of different denominations, who together offer their lives for faith in Jesus Christ. Their martyr witness speaks more eloquently than any words: unity springs from the Lord's Cross" (XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Final Document, no. 23). May the blood of so many witnesses hasten the blessed day when all of us will drink together from the cup of salvation!

Dear brothers and sisters, a Pakistani child, Abish Masih, killed in a terrorist attack on a Catholic church, had written in his notebook: "Making the world a better place." That child's dream encourages us to courageously witness to the faith, to together become leaven of fraternity and peace for humanity.

Source: vaticannews.va/vi

Pope Leo XIV, Angelus Address for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14, 2025) - The instrument of death becomes a source of life

Dear brothers and sisters, good Sunday!

Today, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, commemorating Saint Helena's finding of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem in the 4th century, and the Emperor Heraclius' return of this precious relic to the Holy City.

But what does celebrating this feast mean for us today? The Gospel of the liturgy (cf. Jn 3:13-17) helps us understand better. The story takes place at night: Nicodemus, one of the leaders of the Jews, an upright and open-minded man (cf. Jn 7:50-51), comes to meet Jesus. He needs light, needs guidance: he seeks God and asks the Teacher from Nazareth for help, because he recognizes Him as a prophet, a Man who performs extraordinary signs.

The Lord welcomes him, listens to him, and finally reveals that the Son of Man must be lifted up, "that whoever believes in him may have eternal life" (Jn 3:15). And He adds: "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" (cf. v. 16). Nicodemus, perhaps not yet able to fully understand the meaning of these words at that moment, will certainly understand when, after the Passion, he cooperates in burying the body of the Savior (cf. Jn 19:39): he will realize that God, to redeem humanity, became man and died on the cross.

Jesus said this to Nicodemus by recalling an event in the Old Testament (cf. Num 21:4-9), when the people of Israel in the desert were attacked by poisonous snakes and were saved by looking up at the bronze serpent that Moses, by God's command, had set on a pole.

God saved us by revealing Himself to us, giving Himself as a companion, teacher, healer, friend, to the point of becoming for us the Bread broken in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. And to complete this work, He used one of the most brutal instruments of torture ever devised by man: the cross.

Therefore, today we celebrate the "exaltation" of the Holy Cross: because of the boundless love with which God, embracing the cross to save us, transformed it from an instrument of death into a source of life. He teaches us that nothing can separate us from Him (cf. Rom 8:35-39) and His love is greater than our sin (cf. Pope Francis, Catechesis, March 30, 2016).

So let us pray, through the intercession of Mary, the Mother who was present at Calvary beside her Son, that this saving love may also take root and grow in us, and that we too may know how to give ourselves to one another, as He gave Himself completely for all.

Source: vaticannews.va/vi

Pope Francis, Homily for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14, 2022) - The snake that kills and the snake that saves

(Pope Francis' Apostolic Journey to Kazakhstan)

The cross is an instrument of execution, but today we celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross of Christ, because on that wood, Jesus took upon Himself our sins and the evil of the world, and defeated them with His love. Therefore, we glorify the Holy Cross. The Word of God that we have heard speaks to us about this, by showing the opposition, on one side the snakes that kill and on the other the snake that saves. Let us reflect on these two images.

First are the biting snakes. They attack the people, who had sinned countless times by grumbling and complaining. Grumbling against God does not only mean opposing Him; more deeply, it means that in the hearts of the people of Israel there was no longer trust in God, in His promise. Indeed, God's people were walking in the desert, heading towards the promised land and they were tired, unable to bear the journey (cf. Num 21:4). And then they became discouraged, lost hope, and at some point, they seemed to forget God's promise. They no longer even had the strength to believe that God Himself was leading them to a fertile and lush land.

It is no coincidence that when trust in God wanes, the people are bitten by deadly snakes. It reminds us of the first snake mentioned in the Bible, in the book of Genesis, the tempter who poisoned the human heart to make them doubt God. The devil, in the form of a snake, deceived Adam and Eve and made them lose trust by convincing them that God was not good, but jealous of their freedom and happiness. And now, in the desert, the snakes return; this time they are "fiery serpents" (v. 6). It means the original sin returns: the people of Israel doubt God, do not trust Him, they complain and rebel against the One who gave them life and so they encounter death. This is the result of distrustful hearts!

Dear brothers and sisters, the first part of this account asks us to carefully observe the moments in our personal and communal history, those times when trust in God and faith among us is lost. How many times, due to disappointment and impatience, have we withered in our own desert, losing sight of the goal of the journey! Even in this great country there is a desert, while offering a beautiful landscape, it speaks to us of the weariness, the aridity that we sometimes carry in our hearts. Those are moments of fatigue and trial, when we no longer have the strength to look up, towards God; those are situations in personal, Church and social life, in which we are bitten by the snake of distrust, poisoned by disappointment and despair, by pessimism and resignation, and closed in on ourselves, losing all enthusiasm.

But in the history of this land there are other painful bites: I think of the fierce snakes of violence, the oppression of atheism, religious persecution, and of a difficult journey when human freedom was threatened and their dignity offended. It is good for us to keep the memory of those sufferings and not erase from memory the dark moments; otherwise, we might believe they are things of the past and think that the path of goodness is charted once and for all. No. Peace is never achieved once and for all; like integral development, social justice and the harmonious coexistence of peoples and different religious traditions, it must be achieved anew each day. And for Kazakhstan to be able to develop further "in fraternity, dialogue and understanding […] to build bridges of solidarity and cooperation with other peoples, nations and cultures" (Saint John Paul II, Address during the Welcome Ceremony, September 22, 2001), everyone's commitment is needed. However, before that, we need to renew our faith in God: look up, look at Him and learn from His universal and crucified love.

And so we come to the second image: the snake that saves. When the people were dying from the bites of the fiery serpents, God heard Moses' intercession and said to him: "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live" (Num 21:8). And indeed, "whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live" (v. 9). However, we may ask: Why didn't God simply destroy those poisonous snakes instead of giving these detailed instructions to Moses? God's way of acting reveals to us how He deals with evil, sin and the distrust of the powerful spiritual battle that runs throughout history. God does not destroy the lowly and worthless things that human beings choose to pursue. The poisonous snakes do not disappear; they are always there, lying in wait, ready to bite. What changed then, what did God do?

Jesus tells us in the Gospel: "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" (Jn 3:14-15). This is the decisive change: the saving snake has come among us. Jesus, lifted up on the wood of the Holy Cross, does not allow...