A Homily for the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross (29)

Beloved brothers and sisters! Today I want to tell you about, and somewhat explain, today’s readings from the Epistle and the Gospel. From the Epistle there was read a portion of the letter of the holy Apostle Paul to the Hebrews, about the cleansing power of the blood of Christ the Savior, who offered Himself as a sacrifice to God the Father for the sins of the whole world (Hebr 9:11-14); and from the Gospel there was read the account of the Evangelist Mark, telling how the Lord Jesus Christ foretold in advance to His twelve apostles—among them Judas the betrayer—that He, our Lord, “will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes of the Jews, and they will condemn Him to death, and hand Him over to the Gentiles; and they will mock Him, and beat Him, and spit upon Him, and kill Him; and on the third day He will rise again” (Mk 10:33-34). Further, in the Gospel there was read about the unfitting request of two disciples, the brothers James and John, that they might occupy the first places when Jesus Christ should be glorified, and about how the Lord gently reproved them, saying “that the path to His glory is the path of the cross, of sufferings, and of death”; about the indignation of the other disciples at the pretensions of James and John, and about the instruction the Lord gave them all on this occasion—namely, that “whoever wished to be greater than the others should be servant of all, and whoever wants to be first should be slave of all”, just as He Himself “came not to be served, but to serve and to give His soul for the redemption of many” (Mk 10:43-45). Now let us return to the Epistle. So, the holy Apostle Paul in his letter to the Hebrews says of Christ that “He is the High Priest of the good things to come”—“with His own blood He entered once into the sanctuary, and obtained eternal redemption” (for all who believe in Him); “and if” in the Old Testament “the blood of bulls and goats”, offered in sacrifice, “and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkled upon the defiled, sanctified them so that the body was made clean, then how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the Holy Spirit offered Himself, spotless, to God, cleanse our conscience from dead works—that is, from sins, whose wages is death—for the service of the living and true God” (Hebr 9:11-14). And so the meaning of the apostolic reading is this: if the prefiguring blood of the Old Testament, the blood of sacrificial animals, sanctified the defiled so that the body was made clean, then how much more will the blood of Christ cleanse our conscience, our soul, and our body from every sin. And the Apostle John the Theologian says that “the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanses us from every sin” (1Jn 1:7). Therefore let no sinner despair, however sinful he may be, but let him hope to receive forgiveness and cleansing of all his sins; for we have a Savior who by grace is always present with us in His Church, and especially in the Holy Mysteries—who came down to cleanse us from every sin, if only we would believe in Him, repent sincerely and irrevocably, and commune with faith and love of His most pure Body and Blood. Thus Saint Mary of Egypt, commemorated today, was at first plunged into an abyss of evils, into the depths of debauchery; but repentance, faith, and love, the labors of fasting and prayer, and the communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ cleansed her and made her holy and equal to the angels. Let us too imitate her faith, her zeal in repentance and prayer and in love for God, her thirst to commune of the Body and Blood of Christ, and the Lord will cleanse us from every sin: “for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is abundant redemption, and He will deliver” us “from all iniquities” of ours (Ps 129:7,8). In today’s Gospel our Lord Jesus Christ gives us this instruction: that we should not seek preeminence and superiority over others out of ambition and self-love, but should seek the one honor pleasing to God—to serve others unto salvation, just as Christ God Himself “came not so that He might be served, but that He” Himself might “serve and give His soul for the redemption of many. Whoever wants to be great among you, let him be your servant; and whoever wants to be first among you, let him be slave of all” (Mk 10:43-45). “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2). Amen.