Every medicine cabinet hides a story. Bottles with child‑proof caps, labels we can’t quite pronounce, doses we would rather skip. Bitter cures seldom feel like kindness in the moment. Yet the physician who truly loves us prescribes what heals, not what flatters the tongue.
Sin opened a wound we could not stitch. Death came as the consequence, and it has torn through families, hopes, and every human story. But listen to the strange mercy of God: the punishment becomes the medicine. The wood meant for execution becomes a tree that bears life. The valley of shadows is turned into a doorway. The cross does not decorate suffering; it transforms it.
Jesus tells Nicodemus that the Son of Man will be lifted up, echoing the serpent Moses raised in the wilderness, so that poisoned people could live by looking up. Then he speaks a sentence that changes everything: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” Not condemnation, but cure. Not a wagging finger, but a pierced hand extended.
How does that touch the texture of our week? We often try to dodge the small aches that sanctify: inconvenience, fatigue, the awkwardness of starting again. We numb ourselves with distractions and call it peace. But the cross teaches another way. When we entrust our whole selves to Christ—our schedule, our gifts, our resources—what felt like penalty becomes remedy. We drink the medicine, and healing begins.
This month our parish is inviting precisely that holy handing‑over. Because the Father has held nothing back, we choose to hold nothing back in return—not with grand gestures that flare and fade, but with steady offerings that shape ordinary days. Time can become an altar: an hour for adoration, a visit to the homebound, a place at the table with a newcomer after mass. Skills can become instruments: teaching the faith to our children, repairing a ramp for a neighbor, lending a voice to strengthen the assembly’s song. Resources can become fuel for mercy: sustaining our common mission, keeping the lights on, and making sure the poor are not forgotten.
Some of us protest: I’m too tired. Others do it better. That is the snakebite talking. Lift your eyes. The crucified and risen Lord does not shame you; he strengthens you. If death itself has been turned on its head by his cross, then our small deaths—time given, preferences surrendered, fears faced—can be turned into doors we actually pass through and on the other side is joy.
So take a concrete step. Choose one costly gift this month and place it at the foot of the cross: a recurring hour of service, a commitment to pray, a pledge that supports our mission even when budgets feel tight. Let it pinch a little; medicine usually does.
And as you look to the One lifted up, ask for the grace to receive what he offers: not a life free of sacrifice, but a life made whole through it. In that exchange—his all for our all—the church tastes the medicine of immortality and learns how to live for God’s world with generous and steady hearts.