Let us repeat once again: "With the deepest humility Christ the Savior walked His earthly path, the path of love for man, and accomplished the work of our salvation."

He condescended to a man, bent over him, as a doctor bends over a sick person, as a mother bends over the bed of her beloved child.

And all this in order to show by His very deeds how He loves man, how He does not consider it a disgrace for Himself not only to put on the image of a servant, but also to endure disgrace and suffering and death from this servant.

We would not have noticed, we would not have understood the love of God, if the Lord had done the same for us, but in a sense of His Divine dignity, with a proud consciousness of His superiority; if only one line showed His contempt for His tormentors, or cold self-satisfaction!

But the Lord everywhere and everywhere showed only His humility and His boundless love for man, even for His betrayer, calling him a friend; even to his executioners, having prayed for them from the cross.

And don't you feel that only through humility and love can we please the Lord, showing Him that we have understood His lesson?

It seems that this feeling, humble love, is devoid of power, and yet it works miracles: it reconciles warring parties, makes hitherto unknown relatives relatives, teaches to forgive offenses and endure sorrows courageously.

And Christ the Lord showed us an example of all this, humbly giving himself over to crucifixion, so that everyone who believes in Him would learn not to despise humble love, but to show it constantly, considering it the best adornment of his Christian life. Amen.

The Word on the Cross

O three-blessed tree, on which Christ the King and Lord was crucified!

In these brief words of the church hymn there is both praise of the holy cross and an explanation of the miraculous fact that the cross, the instrument of the most shameful execution, has become our adornment, has become honorable, treblessed, that instead of bringing a curse upon the Crucified One, for it is said in the Holy Scriptures: "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree," the cross itself was sanctified and became an instrument and symbol of blessing.

In Rome, only slaves were crucified; A slave there was not considered a person: a guilty slave, without any trial or appeal to the authorities, was simply thrown into the pool by the master to be eaten by the moraines.

In the Roman provinces, only rebels and robbers were crucified. And suddenly, in the same Rome, in the arena of the Colosseum, in the very arena, the sand of which is soaked in the blood of Christian martyrs, a cross is erected with the inscription: "Ave sruх, unica spes nostra" (Praise to the Cross, our only hope!).