The Precious Life-Giving Cross
From a sermon by Saint Theodore the Studite (759-826)
The precious and life-giving cross of Christ
Narrated by Fr. Frank Dugan
How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return.
This was the tree on which Christ, like a king on a chariot, destroyed the devil, the lord of death, and freed the human race from his tyranny. This was the tree upon which the Lord, like a brave warrior wounded in hands, feet and side, healed the wounds of sin that the evil serpent had inflicted on our nature. A tree once caused our death, but now a tree brings life. Once deceived by a tree, we have now repelled the cunning serpent by a tree. What an astonishing transformation! That death should become life, that decay should become immortality, that shame should become glory! Well might the holy Apostle exclaim: Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world! The supreme wisdom that flowered on the cross has shown the folly of worldly wisdom’s pride. The knowledge of all good, which is the fruit of the cross, has cut away the shoots of wickedness.
The wonders accomplished through this tree were foreshadowed clearly even by the mere types and figures that existed in the past. Meditate on these, if you are eager to learn. Was it not the wood of a tree that enabled Noah, at God’s command, to escape the destruction of the flood together with his sons, his wife, his sons’ wives and every kind of animal? And surely the rod of Moses prefigured the cross when it changed water into blood, swallowed up the false serpents of Pharaoh’s magicians, divided the sea at one stroke and then restored the waters to their normal course, drowning the enemy and saving God’s own people? Aaron’s rod, which blossomed in one day in proof of his true priesthood, was another figure of the cross, and did not Abraham foreshadow the cross when he bound his son Isaac and placed him on the pile of wood?
By the cross death was slain and Adam was restored to life. The cross is the glory of all the apostles, the crown of the martyrs, the sanctification of the saints. By the cross we put on Christ and cast aside our former self. By the cross we, the sheep of Christ, have been gathered into one flock, destined for the sheepfolds of heaven.
Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings
Saint Theodore the Studite (759-826) was born at Constantinople and became a novice at a monastery near Constantinople and was ordained there in 787 and later became abbot. For denouncing Emperor Constantine VI for leaving his wife and marrying Theodota, Theodore and his monks were exiled to Thessalonica. They returned when Constantine’s mother seized power, dethroned and then blinded her son. He moved to Constantinople to escape Saracen raids and reopened the monastery at Saccudium and his followers grew from a dozen monks to over one thousand and the monastery soon became the center for Eastern monastic life where learning and the arts, especially calligraphy was developed. Theodore wrote a rule for the monastery that was adopted in Russia, Bulgaria, Servia and Mount Athos. Theodore was again imprisoned, this time by Emperor Nicephorus for opposing invalid royal marriages. His monks were dispersed but he returned after the death of the Emperor. Theodore became the leader of the orthodox and was banished a third time to Bonita in Anatolia when a letter to Pope St. Pascal was discovered defending the primacy of the bishop of Rome. He endured great hardships the three years he was in prison. He died in 826 at the monastery of Akrita.