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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!
Four times a year we celebrate and venerate to the precious and Life-giving cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The first time – during the Passion Week, when reading the Holy Gospel of Passion, we see how the Saint Crusification, the Cross, on which the Lord died give us the new life is rising before us. The second time we celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross of our Lord, when we recall how the cross was found and how people for the first time after over three hundred years could see the cross, on which the Lord died and touch it. We also celebrate the Procession of the Venerable and life-giving Cross, a small part of the Lord’s Cross which was carried round deadly infected Constantinople, returns the town to life and renewed the belief to mercy and love of the Lord. And today, in the middle of Great Lent we venerate to the life – giving Cross of the Lord.
Each of these feasts has a seal of that time or the sense with which we celebrate it. We present ourselves before the Crusification with horror on the Great Thursday, with amazement and gratitude on the Exaltation and the Procession of the Life-giving cross of the Lord.
With what feeling do we present our-selves before the Lord’s Cross today? This veneration takes place half-way between the beginning of great Lent and the Passion Week. What does this Cross tell us about? All this period of time tells us how God’s grace, God’s love, God’s power can change each of us, sanctify each of us, give each of us new life, the eternal life as it happened with thousands and thousands, millions of people before us. The Cross tells us about amazing God’s love, that God became a man, died on the Cross because of love to us, so that through His death we would be saved from despair of sin and death. The Cross has been given to us now as a hope, as confidence that we are dear to God, that all impossible is possible.
But the Cross also tells us about another thing. It tells us that to live this new life, one should revise everything. In the Evangel there are words addressed to us by Christ “If anybody wants to follow me, one should deny himself take up his cross and follow me”. And to follow Christ means to begin a new life, the life where God and my neighbor are dearer to me than my own life. This is our cross which we must carry – love, concern for the neighbor, worry about him, a wish that God’s will would also take place in his life, that is the eternal life, the eternal joy, exultation and triumph.
That is what the Lord tells us today, that’s why we can venerate today to the Holy Cross not with injured soul, not with horror but with bright hope. We shouldn’t be only spectators but should go this way with Christ rejoicing victory and venerating with joy to incomprehensible God’s love. Amen.