September 14 in the General Roman Calendar is not a saint's memorial but the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a feast of the Lord that outranks any saint's day. It recalls the dedication in 335 of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, built over the places of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, and the veneration of the relic of the true Cross found there. It also commemorates the recovery of that relic by the Emperor Heraclius in the seventh century after it had been carried off from Jerusalem.
On this day the Church looks straight at the Cross and calls it not a defeat but a triumph — the place where suffering and love were joined and death itself was overturned. For anyone carrying grief, the feast is a quiet promise: the Cross we bear is the same wood by which Christ carries us home.
O God, who willed that your Son should undergo the Cross to save us, grant that we who glory in that same Cross may receive its fruit of everlasting life. Amen.