The Seven Sundays of the Holy Cross AD 2008

As we continue the 7 Sundays of the Feast of the Holy Cross,
we behold the Sign of the Jonah and the Hope of our Salvation.

We enter in faith the culminating celebration of the Church's calendar year.
We enter in hope the culminating celebration of this world and the world to come.
We enter in love the Holy Mysteries of Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.

The Victory of the Holy Cross
is celebrated in every Holy Qurbana
The Eucharistic Liturgy is a sacramental encounter and embodiment of the Lord's Paschal Mysteries.
Within the "mercy - peace - sacrifice - thanksgiving" of the Anaphora,
the Great Dyptychs and Elevation of the Gifts
announce and encounter, respectively,
the Communion of the Saints in the One Holy Trinity:
a Heavenly Communion with us now
in the Mysteries of the Liturgy,
the Mysteries of the Church per se.

At this precise "theological kairos" now
the priest and choirs of the Holy Qurbana
pray the Kukilions of the Royal Daughter Sion and the Virgin Mother of God.

And precisely here the Victory of the Cross is chanted in the Kukilion:
By Thy Cross, O Jesus Lord,
By Thy Mother's praying word,
take from us and from our path
punishments and rods of wrath.

Then follow the Kukilions of the Patronal Saints and the Beloved Departed,
which as a whole embodies sacramentally the Kairos, Presence, Dynamis, and Koinonia of the Heavenly Liturgy.

Mystagogically and anagogically,
the Parousia of the New Aeon
is sacramentally present in these very Kukilions;
the Trintarian "with us now" of the Great Elevation
is conjoined to the Communion of Saints
in the Divine Liturgy of the Holy Qurbana.

So too the Calendar of the Church Year:
the cycle, progression, and culmination of Feasts
proclaims the Church's own self-understanding and witness
as the Mystical Body of Christ
and the Paschal Victory of the Holy Cross.

We finish the year with Marian Feasts and the 7 Sundays of the Holy Cross.
The chronology of the feasts becomes "a kairos of the Mysteries":

Through the Marian Feasts of the Church
we enter the heart of the Mother of God,
and we encounter the maternal love
that she gives to the beloved disciple at the Foot of the Cross.

St. Mary is the great birth-giver of discipleship -- and thus the Church itself -- the "New Eve" who is "Mother of All the Living" -- all the members of the whole and entire Body of Christ.

Thus we are brought into the Victory of the Cross precisely through the blessings given through the Theotokos at the Foot of the Cross, the blessings given through "the Priestly Qurban" of the Lord in His Pasch.




From St. Ephrem in his second mêmrâ "On Reproof":

Let us be builders of our own minds
into temples suitable for God.

If the Lord dwells in your house,
honor will come to your door.

How much your 'honor' will increase
if God dwells within you.

Be a sanctuary for him, even a priest,
and serve him within your temple.

Just as for your sake he became
High priest, sacrifice, and libation;

you, for his sake, become
temple, priest, and sacrificial offering.

Note here the "re-capitulation" of Pentecost

in the Feast of the Holy Cross.

And through time and history

see the "Anno Domini" as an epiphany of the Church.

More on the Holy Cross

The Crown of the Calendar Year and Salvation History in Christ