Gospel (Jn 3,13-17) - At that time, Jesus said to Nicodèmo: «No one has ever ascended to heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of man. And as Moses raised the serpent in the desert, so the Son of Man must be raised, so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. In fact, God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him should not be lost but have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through him."

The commentary on the Gospel by Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia

Today's liturgical memory recalls the story of the "bronze serpent" raised by Moses in the desert to save the people afflicted by poisonous snakes. A condition that recalls the danger and precariousness of life in the deserts of this world and this time. Moses, obeying God's command, raised a bronze serpent; whoever looked at it would not die. It was actually a prefiguration of the cross. The evangelist John writes explicitly: "Just as Moses raised the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be raised" (Jn 3:14). There is still a need today to exalt the cross, not as a scaffold, but as a memory of what Jesus suffered and of the point to which his love for us has reached. The habit of seeing the image of the cross has made us lose the meaning of it: we no longer think that it was among the harshest instruments of torture. Today, in exalting the Holy Cross, this love is exalted. By dying on the cross Jesus saves love. He, as the apostle writes in the hymn of the Letter to the Philippians, began his journey towards the cross when he did not consider being like God a privilege. Out of love "he emptied himself, taking on the condition of a servant"; out of love he "humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death and death on a cross". The Father himself was moved by such completely disinterested love of the Son to the point that he "exalted him and gave him the name which is above every name".