Word for the Second Week of Great Lent (22)

To ease the struggle of fasting, the holy Church has appointed that in the very middle of the fast the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord be carried out. Whoever truly fasts must necessarily endure the anguish of the flesh, the stubborn struggle of the spirit against it, and to crown it all—the snares of the devil, acting on our soul through various thoughts that bring great sorrow, especially to those who are still not steadfast and imperfect in Christian life. May the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, now carried out for veneration and for heartfelt gazing upon and kissing, comfort such fasters and ease their struggle. May all who do not fast with true fasting and those who do not fast at all not be deprived of its consolations; let everyone draw near with faith and love and kiss the Savior upon it. Let the divine Sufferer teach all from His Cross the important duty of the Christian—fasting and the mortification of our flesh that loves sin. Because the Cross itself calls forth a word about love, we will now speak of the greatness of God’s love toward us, made manifest on the cross, so that we might kindle love for God and for a life worthy of a Christian in the cold hearts of Christians. Indeed, what an abyss of love of God the Creator is expressed on the cross toward His creation, man. The Creator of heaven and earth; of all visible and invisible things, He who set the sun in the heavens, the moon and countless stars; He who spread the air for the breathing of all living things, He who spread the waters over the face of the earth, He who covers the earth with vegetation and brings forth, nourishes, and sustains all living creatures—the only begotten Son of God has deigned to become man for the salvation of man, who had fallen by his own will from life to death; He endures for him the most agonizing sufferings on the cross and the most shameful death—so that His sufferings might be reckoned by the righteous heavenly Father as if they were the sufferings of all mankind of all times and places, and so that, thus, mankind entrusted to Him in faith and love might be freed from unimaginable eternal torments in Hades and from the second death. A man with unpained eyes of the heart, seeing such infinite love of the great, almighty God for sinful man, cannot but weep from the feeling of God’s boundless love and sheds tears of love and gratitude, having nothing greater to offer to Him for whom our tears of love are precious. But with what does most of us respond to such love of God? With insensitivity, with readiness to crucify the Son of God a second time with every possible vice, with compliance with our sinful flesh the most intensely so that most of us, as if forgetting the sufferings on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, live entirely not for heaven and not for our soul, but for earth and for our body, and scarcely, by the institution of the church, agrees to deny our flesh unnecessary food and drink only a few days. And so by every means we ourselves turn away from our salvation; the Savior suffered for us on the cross, but we do not wish even to know of these sufferings; He has commanded us for our salvation to take up each his own cross and follow Him to heavenly glory, but we do not wish even to listen; it has been shown to us, as a medicine, the mortification of our flesh with its passions and lusts, but we strive all the more strongly to satisfy our passions, to fulfill our lusts. What then? So will the end be also. And we will be consumed by eternal fire, and we will not receive even a drop of cooling in the flame of Gehenna—for the reason that here we had every possible cooling, every possible pleasure for our sinful flesh. May the Lord not allow it! Rather—for the cross, while the Crucified One on the cross continues to show us His mercies. Amen.