9/14/10 cblog TODAY WE CELEBRATE the FEAST of the HOLY CROSS , St. Callistus m "Today we celebrate the feast of the holy cross..the cross ..totally different meaning..it was punishment for evil..nobody liked to be crucified..but Jesus changed the meaning of the cross..today the cross is different..it means triumph, victory..even the first Christians..cross wasn't symbol of Christ..they used a fish...but today the cross reps Jesus who died for us..how many of us ..symbol of Christianity..remind us..Jesus destroyed sin & death..Jesus invited us to deny ourselves, be discioples,followers.."
Numbers 21:4b-9 "With their patience worn out by the journey the people complained against God and Moses,"Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!" In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents, which bit the people so that many of them died Then the people came to Moses and said"We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you Pray the LORD to take the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses,"Make a saraph and mount it on a pole, and if any who have been bitten look at it, they will live." Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. R. (see 7b) Do not forget the works of the Lord Hearken, my people, to my teaching
"Brothers and sisters: Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave coming in human likeness and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Jesus said to Nicodemus:"No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life." For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him."
