In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ.
Glory to Him. Jesus does not sugarcoat things.
It's not an opium of the people. There's no drugging
going on here. It's very realistic, and you heard
His words about the cross. Very, very much. Since
Lent is very structured for the... training of
the catechumens. This is another reminder to
the catechumens to count the cost. But did you
hear what Jesus said at the end? There are some
standing here who will not experience taste death
until they have seen the kingdom of God come
in glory. That's going to be your baptism. The
kingdom of God will be implanted in your hearts
and you will experience that humble but bright
and peaceful and joyful glory that Jesus promises.
By the grace of God, we've been counted worthy
to arrive at this third Sunday of Lent, the Sunday
which we call the veneration of the precious
and life -giving cross which lies before us,
the throne of glory which... St. Paul says, let
us boldly come before the throne of glory that
we may receive grace and help in time of need
and mercy. I ask your forgiveness. Since I'm
not going to share my own sermon, but I'm going
to read a sermon by the priest Maximus of the
Seminary of Holy Cross, a former Athonite monk
of Simonopetra Monastery on the Holy Mount. This
is what he said. Through the cross, we are strengthened
so that we can figure out the truth amidst all
the challenges and the struggles that lie before
us and so we can make progress on our spiritual
journey. And through the cross, we receive joy
just as we say at every Sunday matins and as
we already did last night at the vigil. Behold,
through the cross. Joy has come into all the
world. And through this joy, we can know and
experience the presence of God in every moment
of our life, no matter how difficult those moments
might be. Christ has his cross. We have our cross.
But we join our cross to his. We place our cross
on his cross, of his cross. And this is why St.
John Chrysostom says this, the whole world has
become a kind of Golgotha, a place where each
and every one of us is nailed to the cross with
Christ, crucified in our midst. And all of us
are crucified on either side of him. Now some
of us, like the one thief, are in terrible pain.
And so we revile and curse. Not only those who
are crucified around us, but even Christ himself,
being angry at him for our fate, blaming him
for our broken bones, for the wounds that we
bear, calling him to account for our every misfortune,
difficulty, and affliction. But it also happens
that in the midst of our pain, we see our faults.
And then, like the other thief, we realize, We
indeed are suffering justly for we are receiving
what we deserve for our crimes. But this man
has done nothing wrong. And that's when we turn
to Christ and say, remember me when you come
in your kingdom. And the man who had no business
in heaven becomes on that very day, in that very
moment, the first to enter paradise. St. Maximus,
the confessor, offers us a profound meditation
on these two men, who in a sense are one man,
or who are all men and all women. This is who
we are at different times in our lives as we
struggle, stumbling under the weight of our cross.
Which of the two we will be depends on how we
respond to our cross. If, on the one hand, we
fail to recognize the presence of the Word of
God, when His love for mankind is blamelessly
suffering with us, well then, like the thief,
we will revile Him, curse Him, repudiate His
judgments, blame Him for our suffering, and for
the cross on which we have been nailed. And because
we did not recognize the Word of God, and did
not ask forgiveness of our faults, we will be
sent away, estranged from the kingdom, receiving
no promise from the word of God that one day
we might attain the kingdom. As for the other
thief, the Greek fathers of the church never
called him the good thief. He wasn't that good.
He was arrested. But instead, the grateful thief.
Because he is grateful to suffer ill treatment
with the word of God. Who blamelessly suffers
ill treatment for his sake. And so he endures
his suffering with gratitude. He sees the word
of God present with him. And he acknowledges
his responsibility for all that he has done.
And he asks that when the light of the kingdom
shines forth. All the pain, all the suffering
imposed on him. By circumstances. might, on account
of his gratitude, be reckoned as virtues he had
freely chosen. Of course, there are many crosses
in life, many crucifixions, and we need to know
that we are not to blame for them. Your cross
can be an illness, a disability, an injustice
that you've suffered, a false accusation. The
pain of being betrayed. Your cross can be the
parent who didn't love you. The loss of a spouse.
Or the sickness of a child. A cross is a place
where you end up when things fall apart. When
your dreams die. When your career collapses.
Or when your marriage ends. A cross is where
you are when you don't know where you are. The
cross is what you're doing when you don't know
what you're doing. It can be the loss of all
that you have and all that you are. Above all,
your cross is also the little sins committed
every day without thinking and the chronic habitual
sins being committed the whole of our life. And
these things happen to us either because the
circumstances of our birth, or because of the
things around us, things we're exposed to, stresses
and pressures that we suffered as children, or
out of insecurity, ignorance, fear, the absence
of love, and so many other things. But whatever
the causes, whatever the causes, the cross that
you carry was given to you. Through God's plan
of salvation. And it is through that cross that
God will save you. Who or what would we be without
our struggles? This is why they say that the
devil tries to destroy us through our virtues.
While God tries to save us through our passions
and our failures. God allows this so we can see
our weakness and our inability and run for refuge
to his grace and strength. There's a profound
mystery here. A mystery in which God enters into
the darkness of our souls, into the pain and
suffering of our crosses and makes it his own.
And we are healed. We often think that God is
going to come into our life by means of some
pleasant experience. That will require little
or no change on our part. But God is much more
likely to enter our lives through a crisis. Like
a serious illness. The experience of loss and
failure. Or the affliction of some kind. Because
these are signs not of God's absence. But of
his active presence. God comes to us in the dark
cloud. In the eye of the storm. In silence. In
midst of suffering and pain. He comes to us,
in other words, through the cross. And this is
because affliction alone can tear us away from
our isolated individualistic existence. And our
house of cards will fall apart. And we will be
transformed into something whole and open and
healed. But the mystery is even deeper than this,
even more wondrous and even more divine. The
crisis that engulfs me, said Elder Emilianos
of Simenopetra, the pain that I feel is a kind
of birth pain, for it's the initial movement
of my soul longing to be united to God. And my
longing for God is meant... with God's longing
for me. For it's God who is seeking me in and
through my sufferings, in and through my pain,
so that in the end, the cross is not so much
the agony of man struggling to find God, but
the agony of God struggling to find each person.
If we can see Christ in whatever cross that we
have, then the cross changes from an instrument
of death to one's life and to healing, to a path
of victory of God's grace in me. This is why
we call it the life -giving cross, the victory
of the cross, the tree of life, not the tree
of death. And what was the source of pain and
death before now becomes the source of joy. and
life, and healing, because the one on the cross
is the source of life himself, our Lord and God
and Savior Jesus Christ, and the cross is his
throne. Let us not be like the thief who rejected
the cross, who blamed God for his problems and
spoke abusively to Jesus, but let us imitate
the grateful thief and acknowledge with gratitude
the justice and the wisdom of God. And because
we are never closer to Christ than when we are
on a cross in our moments of difficulty, let
us speak to him and ask him to remember us so
that we too may hear him say, today you will
be with me in paradise. Amen.