Speaker 1: Today, the church gives us one of her most astonishing feasts.
Speaker 1: We need to understand it in that way the exaltation of the Holy Cross.
Speaker 1: At first glance, the very name sounds strange.
Speaker 1: How can you exalt an instrument of torture?
Speaker 1: How can you lift high something that was meant to humiliate, to destroy, to silence?
Speaker 1: Crucifixion was Rome's way of saying your life doesn't matter, your voice does not count, your truth, your religion has no place here.
Speaker 1: And yet here we are.
Speaker 1: The cross, once a sign of defeat, is now the greatest symbol of victory.
Speaker 1: The cross, once meant to silence, has become the loudest proclamation of love the world has ever known, loudest proclamation of love the world has ever known.
Speaker 1: The cross that was once meant to erase is now engraved in all of our churches, our homes and our hearts.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because Jesus Christ has transformed the cross.
Speaker 1: He has taken the worst that the world can do and has turned it into the greatest sign of God's redempting power.
Speaker 1: That's why St Paul says the cross is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Speaker 1: It is power, not domination, but of love stronger than death.
Speaker 1: It is wisdom, not of arguments or clever philosophies, but of self-giving that reveals what life is really for.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what we celebrate today.
Speaker 1: That is what we are exalting.
Speaker 1: But here's the uncomfortable truth.
Speaker 1: If the cross really is the center of our faith, then it's not a decoration, it is a demand.
Speaker 1: To look at the cross is to look in the mirror, and that can be unsettling, because a cross will always ask you will you follow Jesus all the way?
Speaker 1: Will you love him more than your own comfort?
Speaker 1: Will you love him more than your pride, more than your opinions?
Speaker 1: Will you love him more than even your life itself?
Speaker 1: We heard last Sunday in the gospel whoever does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
Speaker 1: There's no middle ground.
Speaker 1: Lukewarm faith, polite admiration, a Christianity that wants blessings and protections without surrender that's not discipleship.
Speaker 1: The cross is not an optional accessory.
Speaker 1: And protections without surrender that's not discipleship.
Speaker 1: The cross is not an optional accessory.
Speaker 1: It is what shapes our lives.
Speaker 1: And here, my friends, is where I must speak with urgency, because we're living in a time when the cross is being forgotten, not only by the world, but sometimes even by Christians themselves.
Speaker 1: The world tells that strength is domination, that truth is, whatever I decide it to be, that, if I don't like what you say.
Speaker 1: I can silence you, but the cross says otherwise.
Speaker 1: The cross says that truth is not imposed by violence, but by a witness of love.
Speaker 1: The cross says that dignity is not granted by government, it is given by God.
Speaker 1: The cross says that the only real victory is not when your enemy is destroyed, but when your enemy is loved.
Speaker 1: And so, when we see sight, when we see violence enter our public life, when we see voices threatened instead of answered, when we see fear replacing dialogue, we need to go to the cross.
Speaker 1: Violence, that silenced speech, is not only an attack on democracy.
Speaker 1: It is a betrayal of the cross, because Jesus himself was silenced.
Speaker 1: He was mocked and condemned.
Speaker 1: Of course he could have fought back with force, but on the cross he showed us a different way.
Speaker 1: He showed us that truth does not need a sword, it needs witnesses.
Speaker 1: The tragedy of this past week confronts us with that reality.
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk, a young man whose words provoked both admiration and criticism, was gunned down simply for speaking.
Speaker 1: In these last days, I've spoken with so many students who admired him and also those who disagreed with him deeply, and yet they all said the same thing no one.
Speaker 1: And yet they all said the same thing.
Speaker 1: No one, no one, should ever be killed for sharing their views.
Speaker 1: That, my friend, is something we all should be able to agree upon.
Speaker 1: His death is a wound in our democracy, but even more it is a wound in our humanity, because when violence replaces dialogue, when bullets replace words, we lose.
Speaker 1: Even those who disagree with him have spoken clearly.
Speaker 1: Free speech is sacred.
Speaker 1: The foundation for individual rights and expressions said it best Political violence is never an acceptable response to speech.
Speaker 1: Free speech allows us to settle our differences peacefully and is essential to a free and democratic society.
Speaker 1: This is why the cross must remain at the very center, because it shows us that truth is not defended with violence, but with witness, with sacrifice, with love.
Speaker 1: This Sunday we celebrate Family Weekend here at the University of Miami.
Speaker 1: We have parents that are visiting their students.
Speaker 1: Parents want their children to thrive, to stretch, to learn, but they also want their children to be safe, not just from physical harm, but from a culture that tells them to be silent, to cancel, to hide their faith.
Speaker 1: Let me be clear Our goal as a parish family and a campus community it is to protect our students not only with locks on the doors, but with freedom to think, to speak, to pray, to search for truth without fear.
Speaker 1: That's what the cross demands.
Speaker 1: And the students?
Speaker 1: I will challenge them.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because the cross is the challenge.
Speaker 1: I'm going to invite them not to retreat into silence or fear.
Speaker 1: Do not settle for lukewarm faith that admires Jesus from a distance, and encourage them to be courageous, to speak truth with love, to listen with humility, to ask real questions and to carry your cross, knowing that you're doing that in doing so, you are not alone.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because Christ himself walks beside you and for all of us.
Speaker 1: The cross is not simply wood and metal on the altar.
Speaker 1: It is alive, here and now.
Speaker 1: Some of you sitting in the pews are carrying crushing burdens illness, grief, family struggles, fears for the future.
Speaker 1: And yet you remind us that the cross does not crush us.
Speaker 1: When we carry it with Christ, it becomes a place where he is closest, where he becomes the doorway not to despair but to life eternal.
Speaker 1: On this feast day, I ask you look upon the cross with new eyes.
Speaker 1: See not just suffering, but see love in action.
Speaker 1: See not just defeat but triumph.
Speaker 1: See not just death but the doorway to eternal life.
Speaker 1: And then let it ask you in the question will you follow him all the way?
Speaker 1: Will you carry your cross with him?
Speaker 1: Will you let your own suffering and the suffering of our broken world become a witness of love?
Speaker 1: Because if the love teaches us it, because if the cross teaches us anything, it is this hatred does not have the last word, violence does not have the last word, death does not have the last word.
Speaker 1: Love, and love alone, always has the last word.
Speaker 1: So today, my brothers and sisters, as family students, gather as a nation wounded by violence, as a church called to be on mission.
Speaker 1: Let us stand before the cross together.
Speaker 1: Let us hear his voice again saying follow me, forget the craziness, forget the world and the noise, follow me faithfully, not when it's easy, not when it's easy, not when it's safe, not when the world applauds, but when it costs us, when it hurts, when it takes everything that we have.
Speaker 1: With the blood of martyrs in our memory and the fresh wounds of this weekend still aching in our nation, let us make that choice not to walk away, not to hide, not to settle for being lukewarm, but to fix our eyes on Christ and to live as his disciples who lift up high the cross, his cross, in our homes, on campuses, campuses in our broken worlds, and may our voices, our lives and the very tears proclaim with unshakable faith abex cross spexis unia.
Speaker 1: Hail o holy cross, our only hope.
Speaker 1: Amen.