Illuminations
United at the Cross
The good Sir Bors, one of the knights on the quest to behold the mysteries of the Holy Grail, enters a strange chapel with someone in the guise of a monk. Sir Bors has asked him for advice on two dreams he has had, which he does not know how to interpret. But when he looks around, he does not see the Cross. And sure enough, the monk gives a lying interpretation of the dreams—accusing Bors of pride in his chastity, and urging that he "serve" a beautiful lady who is dying for love of him. It is an interpretation that buries the Cross.
We in our time bury the Cross, too. We say that Jesus does not want us to suffer, though he himself has said that we must take up the Cross and follow him. I've been in churches where nary a Cross is to be seen. For many years, Catholic churches in the United States, embarrassed by the Crucified, preferred representations of the risen Christ. "We are an Easter people," they said, but there is no Easter without Good Friday. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.
We do well, then, to recall the pilgrimage of St. Helen, the mother of Constantine, who traveled to Jerusalem to unearth the Cross of Jesus. Her discovery has been memorialized in the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, celebrated on September 14. The Cross is the Tree of Life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations—and for our healing, too. Christians may not be one in the journals of theology, but we should all gather beneath the Cross, and if we do not do so on our own, our enemies may do the favor for us.
Prayers for Patience
The hymns across the Christian traditions can instruct us. The Methodist poet Fanny Crosby, blind from infancy, begged not to be free from suffering, but to dwell in the comfort of Christian patience, which looks forward to paradise beyond:
Jesus, keep me near the Cross;
There a precious fountain,
Free to all, a healing stream,
Flows from Calvary's mountain.
In the Cross, in the Cross,
Be my glory ever,
Till my ransomed soul shall find
Rest beyond the river.
"But he that glorieth," says Saint Paul, "let him glory in the Lord" (2 Cor. 10:17).
At vespers on the eve of the feast, the Orthodox read about the time when the children of Israel grumbled against Moses, because they had no water to drink. So the Lord showed to Moses a tree, "which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet" (Ex. 15:25). Then they hear the words of Solomon, words of comfort in times of distress: "for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth" (Prov. 3:12). That patience is a work of wisdom, which is "a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her" (3:18).
Finally they hear, while they prostrate themselves—not lying prone, but falling to their knees, resting their hands on the floor, and touching the floor with their foreheads—the great universal prophecy of Isaiah, when all the nations shall come to Zion, "and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee the City of the Lord" (Is. 60:14).
The Invincible Trophy
The chants of the Orthodox are unfamiliar to me, I confess, but whenever I hear them, I am stirred to the depths of my soul by their power. Here is the kontakion for the feast, a little homily in chant:
Anthony Esolen is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Thales College and the author of over 30 books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House) and, with his wife Debra, publishes the web magazine Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com). He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
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more on hymns from the online archives
more from the online archives
30.2—March/April 2017
The Education of Children Takes Generations of Fidelity by W. Ross Blackburn
23.6—November/December 2010
Darwin, Design & Thomas Aquinas
The Mythical Conflict Between Thomism & Intelligent Design by Logan Paul Gage
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