Rejoice, O Life-bearing Cross, the invincible weapon of godliness, the gate of paradise, the protection of the faithful! The Cross is the might of the Church. Through it corruption is abolished. Through it the power of death is crushed and we are raised from earth to heaven! The Cross is the invincible weapon of peace, the enemy of demons, the glory of the martyrs, the haven of salvation// which grants the world great mercy!
Rejoice, O Cross of the Lord! Through you mankind has been delivered from the curse, shattering the enemy by your Exaltation! O Cross, worthy of all honor, you are a sign of true joy; you are our help, you are the strength of kings. You are the power of the righteous. You are the majesty of priests. All who sign themselves with you are freed from danger. O rod of strength, under which we like sheep are tended, You are a weapon of peace round which the angels stand in fear! You are the divine glory of Christ our God,// Who grants the world great mercy!
Rejoice, O guide of the blind, physician of the sick and resurrection of the dead! O precious Cross, you raised us up when we were fallen into mortality. Through you corruption has been destroyed, and incorruption has blossomed forth. We mortals are made divine and the devil is completely overthrown! Seeing you exalted today by the hands of bishops, we exalt Him Who was lifted high upon you and we fall down in worship before you,// freely drawing from you great mercy!
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Moses prefigured the Cross and defeated Amalek; David ordered worship at Your footstool. So today we sinners venerate it with unworthy lips, O Christ God. We cry to You, the crucified One:// “O Lord, make us worthy, with the thief, of Your Kingdom!”
9 comments:
"All who sign themselves with you are freed from danger."
Would you mind expanding on the meaning of this a bit?
The hymnography of this feast is stunning in it's truth, isn't it?
Happy Feast to you! (we are still in the afterfeast, after all!)
Rhology,
Things have been crazy here the past week or so; I promise I'll comment soon.
FreeCyprus,
Please do me the favor of keeping comments on topic/non-self-promoting. Thanks.
David, my comment wasn't "self-promoting"
It was about the 300 Spartans and eventually the rest of Greece fighting against the tyranny and intolerance of the advancing Persian Empire.
Had it not been for the bravery of the planet's first democracy...standing up to tyranny...the whole of Europe would have been under the Persian Empire.
Perhaps today Greece and other parts of Europe would look more like the middle east, where pluralism is not present, where droves of Christians (a large majority of whom are Orthodox) and Jews have been driven out. Where people are not allowed the freedom to practice their religion, where the building of Christian churches is illegal (ie Saudi Arabia).
David, there was a point to my posting but perhaps your prejudice blinded you to it. God doesn't want us to live in our own little man-made Christian worlds (like a blog)...He wants us to be members of His entire planet, brothers and sisters to all of His children...
You have the freedom to delete this comment and any other comment you'd like.
God bless all the freedoms we take for granted (like the freedom to practice our Orthodox religion). Let's remember all of those who sacrificed themselves for us to sit comfortably and safely in front of our laptops, or to sit on the couch with our Bibles...
'Twasn't self-promoting,you're right, but it was off-topic enough to whet my curiosity as to why it would show up here...
My apologies if I offended you; was there some link between the Spartans and the elevation of the Cross of which I was unaware?
Rhology,
The blessing with the sign of the cross has been in use since (at least) the late 200s. The idea is that, in making a physical sign of the Cross, the grace and power that the True Cross (whose recovery we celebrate both on the 14th of this month and in the middle of Great Lent) is made present in the place where it's made.
For ex., I make the sign of the Cross over myself and my food when I sit down to eat and over myself when I'm done, as well as say a prayer in both instances. Before getting in bed, after getting out of bed, when invoking the Trinity, when putting my daughter to bed (I make the sign over her) or closing the door when I exit her room (or any house--I make a big sign of the cross over the top beam, the bottom, and the two posts): all of this is to bless these things with the grace and power and protection of the holy Cross of our crucified and risen Lord.
So is it like praying that God bless the thing over which the sign of the cross is made?
Anything more than that?
(Word verification: uxnhtdw
Sounds like the sound I make when I've just finished push-up #7 and am working on #8...)
Not really anything more than that, AFAIK.
And yes, you know you've been using blogger for too long when you start sounding out the word verifications... "fdxsd..."
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