Father Glenn J. Comandini

The Exaltation of the Cross — a feast that speaks to us about someone who was also larger in death than he was in life: Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, there were those who thought Jesus was a renegade, a blasphemer, a trouble-maker; yet, the small pocket of those whom he healed, taught and touched has mushroomed over 2,000 years, claiming innumerable converts who have come to acknowledge this Jesus not only as an ethical model and a miracle-worker but as the anointed one, the Christ, the long-promised savior whose humanity sanctified ours and whose divinity made satisfaction or, better, atonement, for our sins!

“How many people like to play the Pick-6 Lottery?”  Most of us would love to win this; however, there is an internal struggle involved here between “do we buy a ticket, since we always lose,” or “do we take the chance again?” Most of us, who play, will gamble again because, to quote the Lottery Commission: “You have to be in it to win it.”

Two weeks ago in the Sunday Gospel, Jesus instructs the Apostles that if they are not welcomed wherever they go, they should “shake the dust from their sandals” and leave that place. The Lord’s instruction that the disciples should leave the place where they are not welcomed makes perfectly good sense and follows Jesus’ teaching that we have dignity and should never surrender that God-given trait, even if it seems the only way to win peace or harmony.