The Third Sunday of Great Lent: The Sunday of the Veneration of the Holy Cross
Categories: hymns, feast-days
Date: 06 March 2010 11:02:46
Troparion (Tone 1): O Lord, save Your people, and bless Your inheritance. Grant victories to Your people over their adversaries. And by virtue of Your Cross preserve Your habitation! Kontakion (Tone 7): No longer does the flaming sword guard the gate of Eden, for a marvellous quenching is come upon it, even the Tree of the Cross. The sting has been taken from death, and the victory from Hades. And, You, my Saviour, has appeared unto those in Hades saying: Enter again into Paradise. Today, mid-way through Lent, we celebrate the Sunday of the Veneration of the Holy Cross. As that article makes mention, this commemoration of the Cross is placed in mid-Lent to refresh and encourage us during the Great Fast. A special service takes place in addition to the Vespers, Matins and Divine Liturgy on this Feast Day. The Cross is placed on a tray surrounded by flowers, and it is taken in procession through the church to the chanting of a hymn, which if I recall correctly is the Trisagion. The cross is then placed at the front of the church on a table and the Troparion above chanted. "Before Your Cross we bow down in worship, O Master, and Your holy Resurrection we glorify" is then sung as the priest venerates the cross, after which the people come and venerate the cross and receive the flowers from the priest. As can be seen from the hymns for today, and the recalling of Christ's Resurrection in the hymn just mentioned, the focus is on triumph of Christ on the Cross and through His Resurrection; and the Cross is even referred to as bringing joy to all the world as we hear read every Matins after the Gospel and before Psalm 51 [50 in the Orthodox numbering]:In that we have beheld the Resurrection of Christ, let us bow down before the Holy Lord Jesus, the only sinless One. Your Cross do we adore, O Christ, and Your holy Resurrection we praise and glorify: for You are our God, and we know none other beside You; we call upon Your Name. O come, all you faithful, let us adore Christ's holy Resurrection. For lo, through the Cross is joy come into all the world. Ever blessing the Lord, let us sing His Resurrection: for in that He endured the Cross He has destroyed Death by death.Of course, there is also the call as Christ called us to to "take up our Cross" and the reminder of the suffering of our Saviour, and struggles and suffering that are part of the life of all who follow Christ. But the joy, of Christ's Resurrection and of our Resurrection on the Day of Christ's return, should also be in our minds. We also recall the Cross as the Tree of Life, in contrast the death and seperation that day effects all of us through the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge in Eden; the Tree of the Cross is a fulfilment of the Tree of Life in Eden. Below is a selection of photos of crosses I have come across in my travels, most in Georgia, and life [I need to dig up the photos of the stunning High Crosses I saw in Ireland one day -- back in the old days of film]. A blessed Feast of the Sunday of the Veneration of the Holy Cross to all!
