The Third Sunday of the Great Fast – Veneration of the Holy Cross 

Слава Ісусу Христу! Glory be to Jesus Christ!

Historical focus: The Cross is both suffering and victory. The adoration of the cross this Sunday is NOT penitential in character. The adoration for us is joyful in character. Through the cross, joy came into all the world. The Cross reveals Godʼs self-giving love. 

Main theological themes: 

The Cross as life-giving: not only suffering, but victory, joy, and consolation. 

Strength and encouragement to continue the Great Fast, seeing it as a share in Christ’s self-emptying. 

The pattern of Christian life: dying with Christ to passions so as to rise with Him.

The Cross for us is victory, not just pain, and it unites our struggles to Christ.

The Great Fast is about fasting for love, not rules.  Even though we are asked to take up our cross daily, we also offer up burdens daily to God. 

Saint Hippolytus of Rome teaches:

The Cross is the tree of my eternal salvation, nourishing and delighting me.

The shade of the Cross shelters me.

The Cross is my nourishment when I am hungry.

The cross is my fountain when I am thirsty. 

The cross clothes me when I am naked. 

The cross is my support when I falter.

The Cross is wholly in all things and in all places.

Peace and Grace, Tim