The recently canonized St. Pier Giorgio Frassati lived in Italy at the beginning of the 20th century. At that time, people had to choose between being a good Italian or a Catholic. People who made the Sign of the Cross were called morons. St. Pier Giorgio Frassati had the strength necessary to be a young Catholic leader at his university and in his hometown of Turin. He endured great difficulties such as a serious illness that led to his death at age 24. When people asked him where he found the strength to live a virtuous life amidst the great difficulties of his life, he always replied that he received it from the Eucharist. This was not simply a pious comment.

This Sunday we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the canonization of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. Her canonization occurred on this Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Like all Saints, she loved the Lord's Cross and her own cross. While living in Italy, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was uniquely impacted by Catholicism, which set the stage for her eventual conversion. She never expected this. Her understanding of Catholicism, an understanding rooted in Protestant tradition, was that our religion rigidly confined the sacred to the bounds of churches and the rites of priests.

In Italy, she discovered the opposite. She learned that Catholicism enables divinity to penetrate life. The simple act of making the Sign of the Cross seemed momentous to her. She wrote to her sister-in-law, her soul sister, Rebecca: “I was cold with the awful impression my first making it gave me. The Sign of the Cross of Christ on me.”

We Christians do not exalt just any cross but the Cross of Christ. We exalt the Cross of the Lord because in it, God's love for humanity was fully revealed. This is what the Lord says to Nicodemus in today's Gospel: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son." God gave us His only Son; God gave Him to us, sacrificed on the Cross.

Pope Francis said of the Cross of Christ: "When we look to the Cross where Jesus was nailed, we contemplate the sign of love, of the infinite love of God for each of us and the source of our salvation. The mercy of God, which embraces the whole world, springs from the Cross. Through the Cross of Christ the Evil One is overcome, death is defeated, life is given to us, hope is restored.” For all these reasons, the Cross is so important for us. It connects us to God's love, gives us the assurance of victory over evil, and fills us with hope. For all these reasons, the Saints loved the Cross of Christ.

And from the Lord's example of willingly and patiently accepting the Cross that his Heavenly Father offered him as the path to salvation, all the Saints learned to accept and love their own cross, their own sacrifice. St. Pier Giorgio Frassati wrote months before his death: “I will be the one sacrificed; but if God wants it so, then his will be done.” For all the Saints, their perfect obedience to God's will was their way of demonstrating their love for the cross. They teach us this.

St. Pier Giorgio Frassati and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton also teach us that the source of our strength in the face of every cross is the Eucharist. Again, this is not just a pious comment. It is the truest thing for a Catholic. The Eucharist makes present the one’s perfect sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, the greatest proof of His love for us. The most holy Body of the Lord sacrificed on the Cross for our salvation is what we receive in the Eucharist. For those of us who receive Him sacramentally, the Lord also invites us to offer our lives as pleasing offerings to God.

Let us humbly ask the Lord to grant us His grace to love His cross as the Saints did.