Meditation for the Third Sunday of Lent: Sunday of the Veneration of the Holy Cross (Mark 8:34 – 9:1)
A person only succeeds in the struggle against sin if he struggles united with Christ. And here is the Cross planted in the middle of Great Lent to strengthen us and to be for us a heavenly ladder, by which we rise with the Crucified One to the heights and rise again with him to reach heaven.
According to tradition, it was on 6 March 326 that Saint Helena, mother of the Emperor Saint Constantine the Great, found the precious Cross. The Church was meant to celebrate the Exaltation of the Cross on that day, 6 March. But the emperor was then building the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem, so the Exaltation of the Cross only took place in 335, on 14 September, after the dedication of the Church of the Resurrection the day before, 13 September. Saint Helena had fallen asleep in the Lord around 330.
But since the Cross had been found on 6 March (Eastern calendar), in the middle of Great Lent, the Church could not overlook this great event: she set the Veneration of the Cross every year on the third Sunday of Great Lent and gave it a place of honour.
On this day we are nearing the middle of the fast, and we see that some of the faithful grow weary of this struggle and tire. So that they do not give up this effort and fall into temptation, Mother Church lifts up the Cross before their eyes in procession; they come forward to venerate and embrace it, reminding themselves that they are crucified with Christ and long for his resurrection.
When they have kissed the Cross, raised on a tray and surrounded by basil or flowers, the priest gives each of them a flower to remind them that through the Cross joy has come into all the world; and so they are strengthened.
Because of this commemoration we read the Gospel passage where the Lord says: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” It is a call to follow Jesus in our daily lives, to draw inspiration from him in everything we do, to obey his teaching, and to follow no one else and not our own desires.
For the Cross is the source of every good thing: at the Cross sin died, and at the Cross death died. It did not end at the Cross: the resurrection followed. The Lord passed to the resurrection only through the Cross. An atheist philosopher (Nietzsche) said, mocking Christians: “There was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.” This is our constant challenge: to prove that we are like our Christ; otherwise Christianity died with Christ on the cross!
There are several feasts on which we celebrate the Holy Cross, the most important being the Exaltation of the Cross on 14 September; and today, the feast of the Veneration of the Precious Cross in the middle of the holy forty-day fast. We notice the difference between the Scripture readings chosen for these feasts. On the Exaltation of the Cross we read the letter of the Apostle Paul where he says that the Cross is our glory, while it is a stumbling block to some and folly to the Gentiles; and the Gospel tells of Christ’s crucifixion between two thieves. All this goes back to the very meaning of the feast: the finding of Christ’s Cross by Queen Helena, and seeing it as the sign of Christian victory.
But in the readings chosen for today, the feast of the Veneration of the Cross, we read a passage from the letter to the Hebrews that speaks of Christ as high priest and of his sacrifice. And the Gospel speaks to us not of the Cross as history but as a cause: it speaks of self-giving among Christ’s disciples.
Yes, the Cross of Christ the high priest was his altar. The Cross is the altar on which Christ became the one who offers and the one offered, the sacrificer and the sacrifice, the priest and the victim. This is the true meaning of the Cross: “the altar”. That is why we venerate it; that is why we wear it on our chests, trace it and raise it up in our homes… Every place should become an altar in which and on which the Christian offers himself as a sacrifice. Otherwise the philosopher’s words come true in us: Christ was the last Christian.
Christians are known by the message of the Cross, that is, by the constant offering of themselves on this altar of two beams, the horizontal and the vertical. Christians are proud of it, and use the Holy Cross at every moment and in every place. We spread out the Cross as an altar, to offer every deed on it as a sacrifice of love. When we carry the Cross on our chest, it is really the Cross that carries us. Every place where the sign of the Cross has been raised or traced is like the stones Abraham set up to offer Isaac in sacrifice. The Cross is an altar to the Lord.
Let us make the sign of the Cross before eating, and we will realize that our share is what we need, that the rest belongs to others, and that indulging selfishness is ruled out. Let us make the sign of the Cross before spending any sum of money, and we will realize at once that the money is not ours, that our share is what we need, and that others own the rest. Let us make the sign of the Cross over everything we look at, and realize that all we may take from it is chastity. Let us remember the Cross before every word we speak, and it will lead us to wisdom. In a word, let us crucify all our desires, and they will rise again healthy, purified by it from all selfishness. The mark of Jesus’ disciples is that they walk in his footsteps, crucified on the altar of living love. The Cross is an altar that turns our lives from the life of thieves into the life of priests. Selfishness is theft; the gift of love is priesthood. Carrying the Cross in this way is fasting itself. These practices are our fasts.
Fasting, at its depth, is an ongoing sacrifice, and its wounds continue in order to heal our selfishness. Fasting turns us into priests of divine love, living not for ourselves but, like our Lord, for others. That is why fasting goes with the Cross as love goes with the altar.
Christ is love sacrificed on the Cross. And our love for him lifts us onto our own cross in the Church, so that we become sacrifices and burnt offerings of love and humanity for every person.
This is the new altar: our daily cross, which we carry everywhere, following in the steps of our Lord; so we become his disciples, dying with him in a death like his and rising with him in a resurrection like his.
We venerate your Cross, O Master, and we praise and glorify your holy Resurrection. Amen.
Fr. Gerard Abi Saab
