While I blogged
already about Mr. Husband and I going to the
Feast of the Cross,
I have not written the blog post for this feast.
Perhaps because it is so linked to my spiritual father I had
for seven years in Ottawa;
one of the first liturgies I was at in Ottawa
was for this feast.
I remember my spiritual father saying how
dwarfed he felt when he was carrying the Cross
out of the altar for the feast.
In Ottawa he would sing the song for the Cross
in Slavonic;
I can still hear him sing it;
so beautifully;
all by himself
and we would all bow
and I would be next to him his left
(was where I always was in church)
and I always felt
so close to him during these times and so
together with everyone there praying.
I have a recording of him singing this on my
computer...
Now I am at a different parish;
one I have been at for a year now and
I am blessed by it.
It is a parish that is very kind
and very family-friendly.
We got this small Cross blessed on this day
and it is waiting to be given away...
The Cross is so many things to us.
It is what we need to bear everyday.
It is the reminder of how we need to forsake all
for Christ;
it is also our Victory, Christ's Victory
and our sure hope.
The Cross is a protection to us.
Every Christian should wear a Cross; it is
not only a blessing and honour to wear but it is
a protection to us.
*
So how do we celebrate this feast at home and on the day of?
It is beautiful,
we fast.
Some who are able only eat one meal that day.
Others eat less and all, to their ability and health conditions,
eat everything Lenten.
We can pray
the prayers of this feast and read the story.
*
It is a feast of humility,
where we remember how the
Emperor took off his royal purple
and entered the City in simple clothing,
it is a solemn feast.
*
I think part of celebrating this is also
to be willing to take up our own Cross.
This is perhaps the hardest part of us sinners.
It is so hard to give up our selfishness,
our wanting to take care of ourselves first.
Our culture is rampant with this;
we need to 'take care of our selves' which means
'buy the latest skin cream'
because 'you deserve the best'...
*
It is seeing marriage as a Cross, which
the fathers and many monastics refer to it as.
Learning to put your spouse's needs first,
thinking of him or her before yourself.
It is a Mother sacrificing her own personal time
or changing that diaper again when all she wants to do is sleep,
since she was up over half the night with that same child.
It is a father taking the time to talk to their child
or a husband taking time to listen to his wife
and the wife taking the time to listen to her husband
when she perhaps has so much to tell him.
It is learning to be a Christian.
It is seeking to not join in with the crowd
but instead live by what Christ and the Apostles tell us to do
in the Gospels and Epistles.
*
Once my spiritual father told me that
self-love is a perverted joy, something that will never really satisfy.
Loving others and not loving one's self will bring
real joy; it brings peace.
*
What perhaps we need to remember is that
taking up our Cross and following Christ at times
may be very difficult, even terrible exhausting.
But in the end of the Cross is the Resurrection.
Ultimately seeking to love Christ's Cross and
embrace the life that God has given us,
which includes our Cross,
is that which will bring peace,
true lightness of heart
and an abiding joy.
*
Oh that we would run to Christ and
be always protected by His Cross!
