The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross – September 14, 2025
Few days in the liturgical calendar give honor to a thing instead of a person. The Holy Cross is one of those days. This fall feast day parallels, in many ways, the springtime celebration of Good Friday and the Paschal Triduum.
The opening antiphon for today’s feast is the same antiphon that begins Holy Thursday. And the liturgy of Good Friday includes the veneration of the cross and ends with a genuflection to the cross and time for prayer before the cross. Yet that day rightly takes on the tone of sobriety and lament, whereas today’s feast focuses more on the joyful triumph that the cross bears for us in Jesus’s sacrifice.
This fall feast day parallels, in many ways, the springtime celebration of Good Friday and the Paschal Triduum.
Finally, the two trees that mark humanity’s downfall and its rise to new life are beautifully connected in the Preface of the Eucharist Prayer: “For you placed the salvation of the human race on the wood of the Cross, so that, where death arose, life might again spring forth and the evil one, who conquered on a tree, might likewise on a tree be conquered, through Christ our Lord.”
On this day, you might adorn the cross you venerate on Good Friday and have an extended procession with it to a place of honor. During the preparation of gifts, you could also incense the cross along with gifts, altar, ministers, and people.
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