Fr. Georges Florovsky, 'On The Tree Of The Cross', Part 2

HOLY TUESDAY

Dear Parish Faithful,

Again turning to Fr. George Florovsky for today's Holy Week meditation. Notice how closely related the Cross and Resurrection are organically related. The very death of Christ is a "resurrecting death," it is not a tragedy or miscarriage of justice reversed by the Resurrection.

Redemption is, above all, the salvation from death and destruction, a restoration of the original unity and stability of human nature. But it is only possible to restore the unity in human nature by restoring the communion between humanity and God. The resurrection is only possible in God. Christ is the resurrection and the life. The way to and hope of resurrection was revealed in the incarnation. Humanity sinned but also fell into corruptibility; therefore, the Word of God became a human person and received our body... Death had been implanted in the body; therefore, life had to be implanted again in order to save it from corruptibility and clothe it with life. Else it would not be able to be resurrected.

The decisive reason for the death of Christ is the mortality of humanity. Christ suffered death, but He conquered death and corruptibility and destroyed the power of death. In the death of Christ, death itself receives a new meaning.

- On the Tree of the Cross, p. 146

Fr. Georges Florovsky, 'On The Tree Of The Cross', Part 1

Dear Parish Faithful,

Holy and Great Monday

"For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified."
(I Cor. 2:2)

As I wrote last week, I intend to share a few short, but remarkable passages, from the writings of Fr. George Florovsky (+1979), perhaps the preeminent Orthodox theologian of the twentieth century, as we enter into the mystery of Holy Week. 

 

Fr. George wrote extensively on the Orthodox understanding of redemption, or how Christ accomplished our salvation through the Cross and Resurrection. He was always engaged in discovering the "mind of the Church" by carefully reading and studying the great Church Fathers. In fact, he attempted to synthesize their thought in a cohesive and convincing manner. A great deal of what her wrote on redemption is helpful for a better appreciation of the culmination of Holy Week in the Cross and Resurrection.

The incarnation of the Word was a revelation of life; Christ is the Word of Life. But the highpoint of the Gospel is the Cross; the death of the incarnated. Life was completely revealed in death. This is the paradoxical mystery of the Christian faith; life through death; life from the grave. We are born to a true eternal life only by our baptism into death and burial in Christ; we are reborn with Christ at the baptismal font. This is the unchanging law of true life: "what you sow is not made alive unless it dies" (I Cor. 15:36).


Redemption is an historic event, as much as it is also an eternal design. It is a sovereign deed of God, but it is also an offer to humanity, and humanity's response in faith belongs to the very structure of the actual redemption. The world has been redeemed, once and forever, but it is still being redeemed, and is to be redeemed. Christ's coming is itself both an accomplishment, a consummation of the promise, and an inauguration of the New Covenant, of the New Humanity, of the "New Creation: " Christ and His Body cannot be separated.

From On the Tree of the Cross - George Florovsky and the Patristic Doctrine of Atonement, p. 144 & 154

Our Commitment to Holy Week

Dear Parish Faithful,

UPDATED APRIL 27, 2021:

Here is a link to Fr. Alexander Schmemann's remarkable Commentary on Holy Week as it unfolds within the liturgical life of the Church leading us to the Paschal Mystery of the Death and Resurrection of Christ.

Fr. Steven

We have reached the saving passion of Christ our God.
Let us, the faithful, glorify His ineffable forbearance,
that in His compassion He may raise us up who were dead in sin,
for He is good and loves mankind. 
(Matins of Holy Monday)

I am trying to fit in one more book before Pascha, and that is On the Tree of the Cross - George Florovsky and the Patristic Doctrine of the Atonement. This book is a collection of excellent essays on the Orthodox understanding of the atoning death of Christ, all very rich and filled with insights primarily drawn from the Fathers. The culminating essays belong to Fr. George Florovsky, arguably the preeminent Orthodox theologian of the twentieth century. Fr. George completely expands our notion of atonement - he prefers the word "redemption" - when referring to the "saving work" of Christ. I will share some key passages from this book during Holy Week. My goal now is to simply share a few comments about the upcoming Holy Week and our approach to it.

 

As Orthodox, we "live" for Holy Week and realize that it is the key week of our liturgical year, as it will culminate in the Lord's Death and Resurrection - the great paschal mystery. As Fr. Sergius Bulgakov once wrote:  

 

"Holy Week sweeps the Orthodox believer along as if on a mystic torrent." 

 

Our problem may just be observing Holy Week with focused attention and prayerful participation, as other demands of life impinge upon us in a never-ending flow of responsibilities - and distractions.

Therefore, I would simply like to provide a few pastoral suggestions that everyone can think about and perhaps incorporate into your daily lives as Holy Week unfolds:

 

• One must first make a commitment to Holy Week and make it the priority for your respective households, regardless of how often you actually make it to the services. This is a week of strict fasting, and no other activities should impinge upon that. Your commitment to making Holy Week the center of your lives is synonymous with your commitment to Christ.

• Try and arrange your schedules so that you are able to attend the services as well as possible. However, if you are not able to attend the services, it must not be because of something of "entertainment value;" or some other distraction that can wait for a more appropriate time. Be especially aware of Great and Holy Friday and Saturday. These are the days of the Lord's Death and Sabbath rest in the tomb. These are days of fasting, silence and sobriety. Respect that fact that you are participating in a great mystery - the mystery of redemption and salvation.

• Parents, you may think of taking your children out of school on Holy Friday and attending the Vespers service in the afternoon. Other children have their "holy days" on which they may miss school; and we, as Orthodox Christians, have our own.

• Reduce or eliminate TV and other viewings for the week. Keep off the internet except for essential matters. Struggle against smart phone distraction/app obsessions.

• Be regular in your prayers.

• Try not to gossip or speak poorly of other persons.

• Choose at least one of the Passion Narratives from the four Gospels - MK. 14-15; MATT. 26-27; LK. 22-23; JN. 18-19 - and read it carefully through the week. There is also other good literature about Holy Week and Pascha that could be read. Actually, this is an incredibly rich resource page from our own parish website that offers extensive and intensive insights into the meaning of Holy Week.

• If you have access to any of the Holy Week service booklets, read and study the services carefully before coming to church. This will deepen your understanding of that particular service's emphasis as Holy Week unfolds.

• If you come to the midnight Paschal Liturgy, do your best to stay for the entire service, prepared to receive the Eucharist. It does not make a great deal of sense to leave the Liturgy before Holy Communion. 

 

Our goal, I believe, is to make of Holy Week and Pascha something a great deal more than a colorful/cultural event that is fleeting in nature and quickly forgotten. To encounter this "more" requires our own human effort working together with the grace of God so that the heart is enlarged with the presence of the crucified and risen Christ.

__________

At the last of our Presanctified Liturgies for this year, we heard the following hymn:

 

I am rich in passions, I am wrapped in the false robe of hypocrisy. Lacking self-restraint I delight in self-indulgence. I show a boundless lack of love. I see my mind cast down before the gates of repentance, starved of true goodness and sick with inattention. But make me like Lazarus, who was poor in sin, lest I receive no answer when I pray, no finger dipped in water to relieve my burning tongue; and make me dwell in Abraham's bosom in Your love for mankind.

 

Does this possibly sound familiar to anyone? Do you know of anyone that this hymn may be describing? Is this person well-known to you? If so, you may want to keep this person in your prayers so that he or she may one day - by the grace of God - be freed of these spiritually-harmful traits.

But our primary aim is to focus on the beauty and depth of Holy Week; a beauty and depth that flows naturally from Jesus Christ our Savior.

 

 

'A Spiritual Question'

 

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

 

GREAT LENT: The Thirty-Second Day

 

"Bread for myself is a material question; bread for my neighbor is a spiritual question."

- Nicholas Berdyaev

 

Those of us who are not poor or who do not interact with poor people with any kind of daily regularity, most likely fail to understand the generational "net of poverty" that is do difficult to extricate oneself from. 

I raise the issue this morning, because we received the latest issue of the St. Nicholas Uganda Children's Fund Newsletter. Our parish has been supporting this excellent ministry for some years now; a ministry organized and administered by Peter and Sharon Georges. I know that some of you are also individual supporters of this Uganda ministry. 

 

Peter and Sharon with a group of Ugandan students

I would like to share a simple paragraph from this latest newsletter that captures the plight of the poor and the barriers that poverty makes so hard to overcome. The paragraph has the situation in Uganda primarily in mind, but this is clearly a universal problem that is just as real in America:

 

The cycle of poverty, or poverty's trap, is a spiraling mechanism that is so binding in itself that it doesn't allow poor people to escape it. It is not merely the absence of economic means. It is created due to a variety of factors, including lack of quality education, insufficient healthcare, and poor infrastructure.

Impoverished individuals and families do not have access to the economic, educational, and social resources that would enable them to get out of poverty. The result is that the poor remain poor throughout their lives. In Uganda, where no schooling is free, parents are unable to provide what their children need to succeed academically - tuition, books, school uniforms, shoes - nor can they afford adequate healthcare.

The poverty trap leads to generational poverty.

 

We have an entire page dedicated to the St. Nicolas Children's Fund on our parish website:

https://www.christthesavioroca.org/stnicholasugandachildrensfund

As a footnote to add from the newsletter: In a country of 47,000,000 the current number of infected people stands at 175. Rather remarkable!

 

A Prayer for Virtue

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

GREAT LENT - The Thirtieth Day

I received some material from St. Vladimir's Seminary yesterday, and included in the packet was the following "Prayer for Virtue" that I am sharing with everyone in the parish. I an not able to determine the source of this prayer, but as the "acquisition of virtue" - a pursuit so dear to the great Church Fathers and other saints of the Church - is so pronounced in our spiritual tradition, I found this prayer a good one to add to my own Prayer Rule, and perhaps others will agree.

Often in the prescribed prayers of the Church, or one written by a saint or pious soul, we are referred to as "unprofitable servants," or something like that. This is never meant to be interpreted as our being depraved or horrible sinners; but rather as an honest acknowledgment - even a confession - that we have not used our God-given gifts in a way that increases the "talent" given to us by the Lord. Such an acknowledgement is a way of teaching us humility, and not to make us feel "worthless" in the eyes of God. We are always meant to be lifted up by God's grace, and never torn down by God's wrath. That is the "Orthodox way." 

 

 

Prayer for Virtue

   Have mercy, O Lord, have mercy! For I, your ungrateful, proud, and unprofitable servant have wasted the multitude of gifts you have entrusted to me.

   Turn not away from me but open the doors of my darkened heart that the Light of Your Eternal Word may enter it. Shine Your enlightenment upon me. Burn up my sins with the fire of Your Spirit.

   O Lord, take me away from myself that I may belong to You. Touch my eyes that I might see You in the face of every stranger. May I, like Abraham, serve strangers and thus receive not only angels but You, the holy, good, life-creating Trinity.

   Make me zealous in the pursuit of virtue. Above all, be my guide in offering holy and pure hospitality. Set my feet to run and find the stranger, giving before I am asked with words of gentle assurance. Keep me in readiness to do good to those who can neither repay nor thank me. In their outstretched hands, may I find healing for my wounds and the cure of my soul.

   Grant me faithful piety, steadfast love, and progress in the life of Your holy Church, that I too may enter Paradise and glorify Your Name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and forever.

Amen.

 

The Real 'Stairway to Heaven'

 

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

A pop-culture awareness that has staying power over a half century now is an immediate recognition of the song titled "Stairway to Heaven."

 

Even those born well after the date of the song's initial appearance (1972) know that it was written by the now-legendary rock group Led Zeppelin. I, for one, will openly "confess" to seeing and hearing this song performed live more than once! I even recall reading an article that somehow managed to calculate that - up to a certain date, at least - it was the most-played song in rock radio history. Yet, I further recall hearing once that the members of Led Zeppelin were "sick and tired" of their famous song!

If not quite arresting, the title is at least attractive. Perhaps it awakens a vague longing deep within our soul: Is there a "stairway to heaven?"  Some sort of path to another reality that lifts us above the mundane and everyday cares of life?  Was there some formula hidden within the song's lyrics that pointed to that alluring path?

Admittedly, I always found the lyrics rather opaque and esoteric. (Certain members of Led Zeppelin were clearly taken by the esoteric and fantastic, obvious from some of their other songs).  Perhaps that simply added to the song's charm as devotees spent inordinate amounts of time and energy trying to decipher or unpack the tantalizing meaning of the song just beyond our grasp. A lot of pseudo-serious literature was actually generated - and passionately argued about - back then offering various interpretations of "Stairway to Heaven's" meaning. And the song did have a compelling energy behind it as its slow beginning moved toward a crescendo of a driving and now classic rock guitar solo. 

Yet, the famous "Stairway to Heaven" is so contextualized in a moment of long ago pop culture history, that "it makes me wonder" what the heady commotion was really all about. After nearly fifty years, it is now just another very recognizable "rock classic;" or, to say that in a slightly more deflating manner, just another "oldie."  For some, it may serve to awaken a certain nostalgia for the past. Or, for others, to a past that they would like to forget!

Certainly no one is drawn to analyzing  those opaque lyrics which really had nothing much behind them in the first place. Obscurity is often mistaken for depth. However, this is not the place to come down on Led Zeppelin and their famous song from the past.  Everyone, including the members of the group, have certainly "moved on."

 

These brief comments on the song "Stairway to Heaven" were prompted by the fact that on the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent we commemorate St. John Climacus, austere author of the famous treatise The Ladder of Divine Ascent. 

I refer to St. John's spiritual classic as the real "stairway to heaven," because after many centuries it is read to this day with great seriousness and pious devotion by Christians as precisely a sure guide to the Kingdom of Heaven. In fact, St. John offers a fine definition as to what it means to be a Christian: 

 

A Christian is an imitator of Christ in thought, word and deed, as far as this is humanly possible, and he believes rightly and blamelessly in the Holy Trinity. (STEP 1)

 

St. John was writing for monks, but to the married Christian he had this to say:

 

Do whatever good you may. Speak evil of no one. Rob no one. Tell no lie. Despise no one and carry no hate. Do not separate yourselves from the church assemblies. Show compassion to the needy. Do not be a cause of scandal to anyone. Stay away from the bed of another, and be satisfied with what your own spouse can provide you.If you do all of this, you will not be far from the kingdom of heaven. (STEP 1)

 

More specifically, the abiding popularity of his famous treatise is all the more apparent for Orthodox Christians, for as Archbishop Kallistos Ware writes:

 

With the exception of the Bible and the service books, there is no work in Eastern Christendom that has been studied, copied and translated more often than The Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus. Every Lent in Orthodox monasteries it is appointed to be read aloud in church or in the refectory, so that the monks will have listened to it as much as fifty or sixty tines in the course of their life.  Outside the monasteries it has also been the favorite reading of countless lay people in Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Russia, and throughout the Orthodox world.  The popularity of The Ladder in the East equals that of The Imitation of Christ in the West, although the two books are altogether different in character.  (Introduction to The Ladder of Divine Ascent, p. 1)

 

The great abbot of Mt. Sinai (+c. 650) writes with clarity and depth about the interior "withdrawal" from worldliness; the struggle with the passions; the acquisition of the virtues; and the final ascent of the soul into the realm where faith, hope and love are the final stages of that ascent that prepares the believer for the incomprehensible glory yet to be experienced when God will be "all in all":

 

Love, by its nature, is a resemblance of God, insofar as this is humanly possible. In its activity it is inebriation of the soul. Its distinctive character is to be a fountain of faith, an abyss of patience, a sea of humility ...    Love grants prophecy, miracles. It is an abyss of illumination, a fountain of fire, bubbling up to inflame the thirsty soul. It is the condition of angels, and the progress of eternity. (STEP 30)

St. John's work clearly betrays the monastic milieu from which it emerged, but since those very passions that plague us remain unchanging; and since the very virtues we struggle to acquire also remain unchanging; and since our goal is the Kingdom of Heaven, then his writings more importantly have a timeless and eternal quality to them. Such a text is never really "dated." It does not belong to a particular movement or fad. The Ladder is an enduring monument of spiritual depth that flows from the Gospel. Thus, its singular characteristic and popularity as an enduring classic.

Now, St. John himself was inspired by the vision of the Patriarch Jacob of a ladder stretching from earth to heaven "and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!" (GEN. 28)

Christ refers to this same vision in JN. 1.  St. John will develop this image with greater detail and this is a very effective teaching tool, for again to refer to the words of Archbishop Kallistos: 

 

His ladder has thirty rungs or steps, one for each year in the hidden life of Christ before His baptism. John's ingenious use of the ladder-image soon became part of the spiritual imagination of the Christian East, and is frequently represented in panel icons, refrectory frescoes and illuminated manuscripts.  (Introduction, p. 11)

 

 

I cannot in the brief space of a meditation offer a detailed outline of The Ladder. I believe the best version available in English translation to be that which belongs to The Classics of Western Spirituality series:  John Climacus - The Ladder of Divine Ascent, translated by Colm Luibheld and Norman Russell, Introduction by Kallistos Ware, Paulist Press, 1982.  

I further believe that this would be an invaluable acquisition for one's library, and it could be read slowly and prayerfully over an extended period of time. Some of the book's content may appear foreign, but there will be so much that will resonate deeply and stay with the serious reader that what is foreign will seem unimportant.  

However, there is an extraordinary passage in Step One that so beautifully captures the meaning of the Gospel, and of God's love of his creation and creatures, that I would like to share at least this much.  This passage takes on an even greater meaning when we recall that St. John was fiercely ascetical and at times impatient with false teaching. But here he is truly expansive and he embraces all of humankind: 

 

God is the life of all free beings. He is the salvation of believers and unbelievers, of the just or the unjust ... of monks or those living in the world, of the educated or the illiterate, of the healthy or the sick, of the young or the very old.  He is like the outpouring of light, the glimpse of the sun, or the changes of the weather, which are the same for everyone without exception. "For God is no respecter of persons." (Rom. 2:11)

 

Although employing what is essentially identical images, I believe that we can say with real assurance that The Ladder of Divine Ascent is on much, much firmer ground and has greater staying power than whatever is quite the endpoint of "Stairway to Heaven."  In fact, I may be reproached for even making the comparison! Yet, the association of images, and further reflection on the surrounding "culture" that produced each work - and which is embodied within each work - came to mind as we move into the Fourth Week of Great Lent.  

In an age of post-modernism and shifting narratives that compete for our attention, there is nothing quite like the "rock" on which the Gospel is firmly planted and not to be moved; while other enticements built on the shifting sands of impermanence are swept away by time (MATT. 7:24-27). 

St. John built his house on the Gospel and thus continues to nourish us to this day with his wise counsel: 

 

Baptized in the thirtieth year of His earthly age, Christ attained the thirtieth step on the spiritual ladder, for God indeed is love, and to Him be praise, dominion, power.  In Him is the cause, past, present, and future, of all that is good forever and ever. Amen. (Concluding "Brief Summary and Exhortation")

 

This prayer weaves together the Cross and Resurrection...

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

GREAT LENT: The Twenty-Fourth Day

 

 

In this week of the Cross, we can turn to one of our most powerful prayers, one openly chanted immediately after we commune with the life-giving Mystery of the Eucharist. This prayer weaves together the Cross and Resurrection as two movements within the one paschal mystery of "life out of death." At times, we can take our beautiful prayers from the Divine Liturgy for granted. Yet, here is a prayer we never want to treat in that manner, and one we can pray outside of its liturgical context as we meditate on the cross and its unity with the resurrection of Christ. This prayer reads like an extended commentary on the paschal troparion, "Christ is Risen!" This prayer is a hymn that we chant with great conviction during the Matins of Pascha.

Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ, let us worship the holy Lord Jesus, the only sinless One. We venerate Thy Cross, O Christ, and we praise and glorify Thy holy Resurrection. For Thou art our God and we know no other than Thee, we call on Thy name. Come, O you faithful, let us venerate Christ's holy Resurrection, for behold through the Cross, joy has come into the world. Let us ever bless the Lord, praising His holy Resurrection, for through the Cross He has destroyed death by death.

 

'Cross-bearers' - Not Simply 'Cross-wearers'

 

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

Shine, Cross of the Lord, shine with the light of thy grace upon the hearts of those that honor thee!
Hail! life-giving Cross, the fair Paradise of the Church, Tree of incorruption that brings us the enjoyment of eternal glory.
Hail!  life-giving Cross, unconquerable trophy of the true faith, door to Paradise, succor the faithful, rampart set about the Church.

(Stichera of Great Vespers for the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross)

 

At the very midpoint of Great Lent we venerate the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord.  If we have in any way taken up the cross of asceticism in obedience to the Church and in reaction to our over-indulgent surroundings, then by the Third Sunday of Great Lent the purpose of our ascetical efforts - and the very goal of our journey - are brought to our attention:  to stand by the Cross of the Lord as we journey toward Jerusalem and Holy Week. 

The timing is perfect, for by this third Sunday of Great Lent we begin to tire, if not "wear out" with our lenten effort to this point.  However, in our weakness we can find the strength and resolve to continue our journey with enthusiasm, and not simply obligation. This is made possible by the presence of the Cross, not only at the heart and center of Great Lent, but at the heart and center of the biblical revelation; of the entire historical process; of the cosmos; and at the heart and center of the Trinity, as the Lamb of God is slain before the foundation of the world.  

With that in mind, we can chant and sing the appointed hymns cited above, not only as fine examples of Byzantine rhetoric, but as profound insights into the meaning and purpose of the Cross. 

What may appear at first sight as hyperbole or exaggeration in the Church's hymnography, is discovered, upon deeper meditation, to be the search for words and images adequate to the great mystery of the Cross, in itself the inexhaustible wisdom of God as the "breadth and length, and height and depth" of that wisdom which will fill us "with  the fulness of God" (EPH. 3:18-19).  The only response to this Mystery once we begin to assimilate it, is to "bow down" in worship before the Master's Cross in awe and adoration.  

In our liturgical tradition we decorate the Cross with flowers in order to enhance and reveal its inner beauty, as we bring the Cross in solemn procession into the midst of the church for veneration.  The decorated Cross is one way of trying to capture the paradoxical nature of the Cross.

For in no way is the Church trying to cover up the horror and brutality of crucifixion as one of the most  perverse and twisted means of humanity's sinful capacity to inflict pain and humiliation on others.  Here is the dark side of human nature at its most lethal.  This is all clearly beneath the surface in the Gospels and their restrained and sober narrative of the Lord dying on the Cross.  And it is on Golgotha "when they had crucified him" (MATT. 27:35) that we can begin to understand why the Lord "cried with a loud voice, 'Eli, Eli, la'ma sabach'-tha'ni' that is 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (MATT. 27:46).  It is in and through this cry of solidarity with suffering humanity while lifted up on the Cross that we never soften or "sing away" the horror of the Cross.  We respect what it meant for the Lord to ascend the Cross. A clear-sighted realism demands that of us.

Yet, Christ is our Passover, the Lamb of God "who takes away the sin of the world" (JN. 1:29).  On the Cross, as the sinless Son of God, Christ absorbs and takes upon Himself all of that sin in order to overcome it from within.  He died on the Cross, but death had no hold over Him. He died for the life of the world and its salvation. By His obedience to the will of the Father,  Christ destroys death by death.

For this reason, when we venerate the Cross we simultaneously glorify the Lord's "holy Resurrection." It is on the Cross that Christ is victorious, not in spite of the Cross. The Son glorifies the Father precisely while lifted up on the Cross. "I call Him King, because I see Him crucified," said St. John Chrysostom. 

As we sing at every Liturgy after having received the Body and Blood of Christ: "for through the Cross joy has come into the world."  That is an incredible claim, but through faith we understand that claim as the very heart of the Gospel, the "good news" that life has overcome death "once and for all."  Whenever we taste of that joy, we taste of the glory of the Kingdom of God. Perhaps here we discover the paradoxical nature of a decorated Cross:  the ultimate sign of defeat and death has become the "unconquerable trophy of the true faith."  Or, as the Apostle Paul has declared:  "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (I COR. 1:18).

The Lord taught us:  "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (MK. 8:34).  These words challenge us to never be content with being passive observers of the Cross, but rather active participants in the life of self-denial and co-suffering love that are implied in taking up the Cross.

This further means that by our very vocation as Christians, we are "cross-bearers" and not simply "cross-wearers."  It is one thing to wear a cross, and another thing to bear a cross.

Of course it is a good thing that Christians do wear a cross.  This is something of a identity badge that reveals that we are indeed Christians, but this worn cross is certainly not another piece of jewelry - Byzantine, three-barred, Celtic or Ethiopian!  By wearing a cross we are saying in effect:  I am a Christian, and therefore I belong to the Crucified One, who is none other than the "Lord and Master of my life."  My ultimate allegiance is to Him, and to no other person or party. With the Apostle Paul, I also confess:  "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel:  it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith ..." (ROM. 1:16).

Such a confession already takes us way beyond passively being a "cross-wearer" to actively being a "cross-bearer."  Dying to sin in Baptism makes the impossible possible.   And with a faith in Christ that is ever-deepening in maturity, we can further exclaim with the great Apostle:  "And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (GAL. 5:24).

The Third Sunday of Great Lent - The Adoration of the Life-Giving Cross - reveals, I believe, that here is something that makes Lent potentially great.  Here are reasons that make taking Lent seriously a worthy and noble endeavor.  We are slowly learning to be Cross-bearers, and in the process transforming the simple profession "I am a Christian," into a powerful confession of Faith.