The church in its wisdom makes us celebrate the mysteries of faith so that we would both grow in faith, hope and charity and get to discover more deeply the action of God in our life.

Today is a day of triumph and therefore, first and foremost, a day of praise in just thanksgiving to the tremendous work that God has accomplished in the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ. It’s something that we can do personally to the Lord because we know that Jesus did this for us. We need to praise Him today and just thank him for the victory that He won for us on the cross. It’s a reason for great joy to realize that Jesus accomplished his work, completely. This is the foundation for real hope in the Christian life. Not a kind of mythical hope that people have. They say things are getting better and they don’t really look at difficulties as so on. It’s an illusion. For us the real hope in our life is that God has accomplished this tremendous mystery of our redemption and He offers it to us and there is the foundation of our hope. It’s solid and it’s on good rock.

If that’s the case then we must also have the attitude of cooperating with the graces that God wants to give us. If we really understand this feast than we have to admit that God is tremendously eager and that means active as well to communicate Himself to us. Not just once in the past, but in our whole life. That communication is going on right now in your life, right where you are.

What are the modes and movements that flow from this tremendous feast? He says: "If I’m lifted up, I will draw all to myself." So where’s the Lord drawing you? First and foremost, is there any real sin in your life? Any real rebellion? Any real deliberate venial sin, not just mortal sin, where you resist the Lord? That’s the place where Jesus is actively trying to lift you up. He wants to give you grace. He wants you to be victorious over this. A lot of people have the attitude, well I’ll go to confession when I straighten out my life a little bit then I’ll go. No. You need to go because it’s only in Jesus that you have the power to overcome the things that you are struggling with. So that’s the first area that the Lord is drawing you to himself.

The second area is there are virtues you have to practice. There’s enlightenment you need. Where’s the place where the Lord is enlightening you? He’s going to give hints here and there and every now and then I blew it, I didn’t treat this person very nicely. I know it. Well, when are you going to get to the point where you’ll cooperate with the grace that God is trying to give you to treat each person as if it’s Jesus? You need light in order to perform the virtuous life. The Lord is drawing you to do that. So where in your life is that happening?

The third area, more importantly, is that of growing in the capacity to giving yourself away. To love without counting cost. That is, He’s trying to transform you into Himself. Where is it that you resist this? And how do you hear the call to respond to this? And how do you respond to it?

One time Jesus said directly to St. Josepha Menendez when she was only a Postulant, "the soul that loves embraces suffering because the soul that loves knows that suffering and difficulties expand the capacity to love." It’s love and suffering therefore, that make more for union with God. And that’s exactly what God is anxious to communicate to us. He wants to give us himself in order to transform us. It’s not enough for us merely to overcome deliberate sin, it’s not enough for us to grow in virtue, we have to become transformed. This is what the Lord is doing, it’s his work, it’s the work of the Lord. The feast of the Triumph of Cross makes us realize that we have the victory but we have to enter the cross and this is what our culture totally resists and because we’re in this culture we too tend to resist. Our approach to life is what’s the easiest way, what’s the comfortable path, how can I make my life pleasant and have no difficulties and no struggles and have everything nice? The church in its wisdom makes us celebrate this feast both to see our real hope, the rock that we stand on, as well as the means, the opportunity that we have to respond to this great God who wants to give us eternal life.