A Message from Father David

This Third Sunday of Lent, we celebrate the Veneration of the Holy Cross. This comes at the mid-point of Great Lent, and the Church offers to us the refreshment of the Life-Giving Cross as an encouragement. As the Church Fathers have described it, the Cross is the Tree of Life, pre-figured by the Tree of Life in Paradise. The Cross gives life, sustains us, and saves us from death itself. But there is another theme to this Third Sunday of Lent, and that is the teaching of our Lord who tells us, “Whoever would wish to be my disciple, must take up his cross daily, and follow me.” In the great paradoxical Mystery of our salvation, if we wish to save our lives, we must lose them. If we wish to gain salvation, we must daily die to ourselves and to the world. This is the path of self-sacrifice that our Lord took, and if we wish to follow Him, it is our path as well. There is no escaping the Cross. There is no escaping self-sacrifice, that lies at the center of our Christian lives. The joy of the Cross, however, is that through the Cross, we have life. May we continue to follow our Lord, taking up our own crosses daily, as a spiritual offering and sacrifice to God. When we voluntarily offer ourselves to Him, we find that we gain life abundant – eternal life with God.

 

Blessings,

Fr. David