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| Mosaic of the Holy Cross, Ravenna, Italy. |
The Cross is truly like the tree spoken of in the first psalm:
planted besides running waters, it produces fruit in due season. How does it
produce its fruit?. Where Adam snatched at equality with God and seized the
forbidden fruit in Eden, the New Adam, the Son of God, willingly laid aside his
glory and became obedient even unto death, to death on the Cross. In the same
hour of the Office of Readings for Holy Saturday, we listen to these words
addressed to us by Christ taken from an ancient homily:
« See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once
wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree. I slept on the cross and a sword
pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your
side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your
sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned
against you”.
It is this self-sacrificing love unto death that gives power to the
Cross. It is this love that is stronger than death that produces the
fruit of eternal life from the barren tree on Calvary.
The Orthodox liturgy sees this Cross held up as a royal standard of
victory, an image captured in a beautiful mosaic dating back to the sixth
century in Ravenna, Italy: Christ is shown carrying his Cross to Golgotha, but
he is robed in royal purple and the Cross is adorned with jewels. Around the
same time that this mosaic was made, the Byzantine Emperor Justin II sent a
relic of the True Cross to the Frankish queen Radegunde for her abbey of the
Holy Cross in Poitiers. It is consoling to think of Christians of East and West
united centuries ago by their veneration of the Cross, as we come together to
do the same this evening. The Bishop of Poitiers, Venantius Fortunatus,
composed a hymn for the occasion, one which we use frequently in the final
weeks of Lent: “The Hidden Glory of the Cross Planted in the Heart of the
Christian Believer”
Abroad
the Regal Banners fly,
Now shines the Cross’s mystery;
Upon
it Life did death endure,
And
yet by death did life procure.
Who,
wounded with a direful spear,
Did,
purposely to wash us clear From stain of sin,
pour out a flood Of precious Water mixed with
Blood.
That which the Prophet-King of old
Hath in mysterious verse foretold,
Is now accomplished, while
we see
God ruling nations from a Tree.
O lovely and refulgent Tree,
Adorned with purpled
majesty;
Culled from a worthy stock,
to bear
Those Limbs which sanctified were.
Blest Tree, whose happy branches bore
The wealth that did the world restore;
The beam that did that Body weigh
Which raised up hell’s
expected prey.
Hail, Cross, of hopes the most sublime!
Now in this mournful Passion
time,
Improve religious souls in
grace,
The sins of criminals
efface.
Blest Trinity,
salvation’s spring,
May every soul Thy praises
sing;
To those Thou grantest conquest by
The holy Cross, rewards
apply. Amen
The centurion with his lance poised to pierce the side of the dead
Christ. St. Paul tells us that the rock from which the water flowed was Christ,
and that this rock followed the Israelites all through their sojourn in the
desert (1 Cor 10:4). What did Our Lord himself tell us of this mystery?.
When speaking to the
Samaritan woman at the well, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that
is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would
have given you living water” (Jn 4:10). “The water that I shall give will
become in you a spring welling up to eternal life” (see Jn 4:14). This is the
first promise: the human Jesus is tired and thirsty, but he offers the divine
gift of eternal life.
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| Jesus on the road to Golgotha. Ravenna, Italy. |
When is Jesus glorified in St. John’s Gospel?. At his hour. And his
hour is the hour of his death. We read in chapter nineteen that the dying Jesus
cried out, “I thirst” (as he had said earlier to the woman at the well); he
received a taste of vinegar; then he announced, “It is finished,” and gave over
his spirit. It is then that the soldier pierces his side, and at once blood and
water flow out. The mystery of Moses striking the rock is fulfilled: the side
of the dead Christ, the Christ who died experiencing our human thirst, is
pierced, and from it flow the waters of eternal life.
Our faith in the Cross is faith in the love of Christ who tasted
death for our sake, and made it the source of divine life. Our religion is
serious, but it is not gloomy: we go through the Lenten season of self-denial
to share in some small way in Christ’s sufferings, and we unite our other,
often greater sufferings, with his, because we know that divine love transforms
death into life.
The Cross, an image so horrible that many in the ancient world
would never even speak of it, has become the Tree of Life. “The Hidden Glory of
the Cross Planted in the Heart of the Christian Believer”.
And yet, we realize how miniscule our own sufferings are as we look
around the world and take note of what is happening in the lives of so many of
our fellow believers. Indeed, we become painfully aware that all this is far
from some sort of abstract theology or pietistic musings. We cannot but be
deeply grieved by the plight of so many of our brothers and sisters in Christ
who, in the Middle East and elsewhere, literally repeat the Passion and death
of Our Lord in their bodies. Just last week four Missionaries of Charity who
ran a home for the aged in Yemen, founded by Mother Theresa of Calcutta
herself, along with the cook at the facility, were seized by terrorists, tied
to trees, and executed. They embody for us the goodness of Our Lord and his
Paschal Mystery: doing only good, spreading love and peace to all, regardless
of religious affiliation, but despised by a small fanatical sect who perversely
distort their own religious tradition to justify eliminating all those who are
different from them, even despite the good that they do.
How many more of our fellow Christians (and other religious
minorities) have been displaced, live in terror, or have, like these sisters of
ours, paid the ultimate price for their fidelity to Christ?
We see here, before our very eyes, once again the Cross of the Lord
standing revealed as the Tree of Life. Death is not the end; rather, a crown of
glory awaits those who remain faithful to the end. And there is no greater
glory than that of martyrdom. To our brothers and sisters who have paid the
ultimate price for their Christian faith, Our Lord hands the palm branch of
victory.
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| "Through the Cross joy
hath come to all the world". |
Reference:
“The Hidden
Glory of the Cross Planted in the Heart of the Christian Believer”.
Metropolitan Gerasimos of the Greek Orthodox
Community March 8, 2016,
Holy Cross
Greek Orthodox Church, Belmont, California.
https://sfarchdiocese.org/documents/2017/10/salutations-to-the-holy-cross-2016.pdf?sfvrsn=0