Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross

THE CROSS IS CHRIST'S GLORY AND TRIUMPH

by Saint Andrew of Crete

We are celebrating the Feast of the Cross which drove away darkness and brought in the light.  As we keep this feast, we are lifted up with the crucified Christ, leaving behind us earth and sin so that we may gain the things above.  So great and outstanding a possession is the cross that he who wins it has won a treasure.  Rightly could I call this treasure the fairest of all fair things and the costliest, in fact as well as in name, for on it and through it and for its sake the riches of salvation that had been lost were restored to us.

  Had there been no cross, Christ could not have been crucified.  Had there been no cross, life itself could not have been nailed to the tree.  And if life had not been nailed to it, there would be no streams of immortality pouring from Christ’s side, blood and water for the world’s cleansing.  The legal bond of our sin would not be cancelled, we should not have attained our freedom, we should not have enjoyed the fruit of the tree of life and the gates of paradise would not stand open.  Had there been no cross, death would not have been trodden underfoot, nor hell despoiled.

  Therefore, the cross is something wonderfully great and honorable.  It is great because through the cross the many noble acts of Christ found their consummation – very many indeed, for both his miracles and his sufferings were fully rewarded with victory.  The cross is honorable because it is both the sign of God’s suffering and the trophy of his victory.  It stands for his suffering because on it he freely suffered unto death.  But it is also his trophy because it was the means by which the devil was wounded and death conquered; the barred gates of hell were smashed, and the cross became the one common salvation of the whole world.

  The cross is called Christ’s glory; it is saluted as his triumph.  We recognize it as the cup he longed to drink and the climax of the sufferings he endured for our sake.  As to the cross being Christ’s glory, listen to his words: Now is the Son of Man glorified, and in him God is glorified, and God will glorify him at once. And again: Father, glorify me with the glory I had with you before the world came to be.  And once more: “Father, glorify your name.”  Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it and will glorify it again.”  Here he speaks of the glory that would accrue to him through the cross.  And if you would understand that the cross is Christ’s triumph, hear what he himself also said:  When I am lifted up, then I will draw all men to myself.  Now you can see that the cross is Christ’s glory and triumph.

Feast of St. Augustine - August 28

Please Read and Enjoy this Awesome and Inspiring letter from        St. Augustine.

FROM THE CONFESSIONS OF ST AUGUSTINE

O Eternal Truth, true love, and beloved eternity

Urged to reflect upon myself, I entered under your guidance the innermost places of my being; but only because you had become my helper was I able to do so. I entered, then, and with the vision of my spirit, such as it was, I saw the incommutable light far above my spiritual ken and transcending my mind: not this common light which every carnal eye can see, nor any light of the same order; but greater, as though this common light were shining much more powerfully, far more brightly, and so extensively as to fill the universe. The light I saw was not the common light at all, but something different, utterly different, from all those things. Nor was it higher than my mind in the sense that oil floats on water or the sky is above the earth; it was exalted because this very light made me, and I was below it because by it I was made. Anyone who knows truth knows this light.

  O eternal Truth, true Love, and beloved Eternity, you are my God, and for you I sigh day and night. As I first began to know you, you lifted me up and showed me that, while that which I might see exists indeed, I was not yet capable of seeing it. Your rays beamed intensely on me, beating back my feeble gaze, and I trembled with love and dread. I knew myself to be far away from you in a region of unlikeness, and I seemed to hear your voice from on high: “I am the food of the mature: grow, then, and you shall eat me. You will not change me into yourself like bodily food; but you will be changed into me”.

Accordingly I looked for a way to gain the strength I needed to enjoy you, but I did not find it until I embraced the mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who is also God, supreme over all things and blessed forever. He called out, proclaiming I am the Way and Truth and the Life, nor had I known him as the food which, though I was not yet strong enough to eat it, he had mingled with our flesh, for the Word became flesh so that your Wisdom, through whom you created all things, might become for us the milk adapted to our infancy.

Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you! Lo, you were within, but I outside, seeking there for you, and upon the shapely things you have made I rushed headlong – I, misshapen. You were with me, but I was not with you.

They held me back far from you, those things which would have no being, were they not in you. You called, shouted, broke through my deafness; you flared, blazed, banished my blindness; you lavished your fragrance, I gasped; and now I pant for you; I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned for your peace.