Word V. On the Third Sunday of Great Lent—the Veneration of the Cross

“«I do not wish to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal 6:14)».”

Thus the Apostle of the Gentiles wrote in his epistle to the newly baptized inhabitants of the city of Galatia, converts from paganism, who were wrongly zealous for the Jewish circumcision—that is, he says, you boast quite in vain of circumcision, now needless and abolished, having had only a temporary, prefigurative meaning, while I boast only in the cross, by which I and all the faithful have been given by God every blessing, victory, benediction, salvation, and life eternal.

On the third Sunday of Great Lent, at morning worship, the Church solemnly brings out from the altar the altar-table cross for the reverent veneration of the faithful, with moving hymns depicting the mystery of the cross, or the benefactions to the human race—surpassing every angelic and human understanding—of the Lord of glory who was crucified and died upon it of His own will. This most moving rite is performed with the intention of strengthening and comforting truly fasting Christians in the struggle of fasting and prayer, and in the sharp temptations to which ascetics are subjected by evil and cunning spirits who attack with special force those who struggle against them. As though the Crucified One Himself were saying to those who pray: I fasted and prayed for you forty days and nights, and conquered your common enemy, who had crushed and slain you; struggle, you too, bravely and patiently—conquer him, you too, with My help; for this race of demons is conquered only by prayer and fasting (Mk 9:29). I willingly endured for you the cross and death, and by the cross destroyed hell and death, and rose from the dead, laying the foundation for the common resurrection of the human race, and gave you My cross as a sure weapon and an unconquerable victory and triumph over unseen enemies. Remember then, with gratitude, My sufferings and death, endured for you in love, and do not forget the benefits of the cross and its power, which laid waste hell and bestowed blessing and life on mankind and opened the heaven that was shut.

This is why the cross is brought out in the middle of Lent, and veneration is paid to it—or rather, to the Crucified One upon it. We must all remember, with love, fear, and thanksgiving, the voluntary sufferings of Christ for us, and diligently crucify ourselves to Him, or crucify our ruinous fleshly passions, which make us enemies of God and of ourselves and pitiable slaves of the devil, who strives to cast us all down into the abyss of hell. These are not empty words—the devil and hell—but real beings and real powers. No one else but the Lord God and Man Himself has conquered them, and He alone can deliver men from their power and torment. Those who believe and sincerely repent will be saved from them, but the unbelieving will perish for their unbelief and hardness of heart.

How do our intelligentsia, our ill-intentioned writers, and many who teach and are taught, regard this holy and life-giving instrument of our salvation, the cross? Out of ignorance and frivolity, they will not honor the cross, do not bow before it, and do not consider it necessary for themselves—which means they have unlearned their faith and passed out of the light of Christ into the impenetrable darkness of demons: they have grown proud with satanic pride and have forgotten Him who, being God, humbled Himself for our sake to death, and death on a cross (Phil 2:8), that He might give us, in Himself, an example of humility and patience and a pattern of obedience to God and to earthly authorities.

Without faith, humility, patience, and obedience, no one will please God and escape His fearsome, righteous judgment—the eternal fire and the dread abyss. But these half-educated men and the unlearned no longer believe even in a personal, righteous, almighty, and beginningless God, but believe in some impersonal principle and in some evolution of the world and of all beings; they believe the ravings of the heretic Tolstoy and unbelievers like him, and not in the true God, and therefore live and act as though they will never give account for their words and deeds, deifying themselves, their own reason, and their own passions. To the willful, their will; to the foolish, their folly; for God has made foolish the wisdom of this world (1Cor 1:20), but the truth of the Lord abides forever, and not one jot, not one tittle shall pass from the law, till every word of the Gospel be fulfilled to the very jot (Mt 5:18). He who is Eternal Truth itself cannot lie.

It seems the day of Christ’s second coming will soon arrive, for the falling away from the faith foretold in Scripture has now come, though the man of sin, the son of perdition (the Antichrist), who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or worshipped… has not yet been revealed. The mystery of iniquity is already at work (even in apostolic times), only it will not be accomplished until he who now restrains it (the Autocrat, whose removal a certain public is bent on securing) is taken out of the way—and then shall the lawless one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming; even him, whose coming is by the working of Satan, with all power and lying signs and wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in those who perish, because they received not the love of the truth (do you hear why?) that they might be saved. And for this cause (do you hear?) God shall send them the working of error, that they should believe a lie, that all might be damned who believed not the truth (of the Gospel and the Church), but had pleasure in unrighteousness—and now truth has vanished, and unrighteousness is everywhere, both in print and in life. Let me close this word with the words of the Apostle: but we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God from the beginning, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief in the truth (for do you believe the truth?), chose you to salvation, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work (2Thes 2:3-17). Amen.