St John the Evangelist Parish

September 14, 2025

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

One of my favorite movies is the 1991 comedy What About Bob? Bill Murray plays a troubled, paranoid hypochondriac named Bob Wiley who innocently but annoyingly hounds Dr. Leo Marvin, played by Richard Dreyfuss. Bob is paralyzed by his fear of, well, everything, and is convinced the psychologist can heal him. But Dr. Marvin’s failed attempts to heal Bob end up driving the doctor to attempt to murder Bob. He fails. The surprise is that, having faced death head-on, Bob is suddenly healed. He attributes his healing to Dr Marvin for the breakthrough “death therapy.” In facing the cause of his deepest illness and dysfunction, Bob is healed.

Underneath this light-hearted comedy is a dead-serious resonance with this week’s feast: the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Christ is lifted up on the cross to force us to face the truth of sin and death. In that reckoning, we find healing. Like Moses’s snake on a pole, the cross says: This is what is causing your sickness – rebellion, disobedience, sin. Look at it! Don’t run from it. Now that we see it exposed, we see life. We see our physician mercifully healing us. In this sense, we are all like Bob Wiley. The “death therapy” of the cross is our only hope for healing.

This week, I invite you to “exalt the cross.” If you don’t have one in your house, get one. Use it for prayer. Gaze on it frequently. It teaches us not to be afraid. It heals us.