Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Crux Fidelis

Faithful cross, above all other,

One and only noble tree:
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peer may be.
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron,
Sweetest weight is hung on thee!

My favorite setting of this text is the motet by King John IV of Portugal. Traditionally it’s a text for Good Friday and the Veneration of the Cross, but it’s appropriate for today, as well.

More about this great feast here. And, because I really can’t help myself, more music.

Also, from today’s Office of Readings comes this sermon from St. Andrew of Crete:

Rightly could I call this treasure the fairest of all fair things and the costliest, in fact as well as in name, for on it and through it and for its sake the riches of salvation that had been lost were restored to us.

Had there been no cross, Christ could not have been crucified. Had there been no cross, life itself could not have been nailed to the tree. And if life had not been nailed to it, there would be no streams of immortality pouring from Christ’s side, blood and water for the world’s cleansing. The legal bond of our sin would not be cancelled, we should not have attained our freedom, we should not have enjoyed the fruit of the tree of life and the gates of paradise would not stand open. Had there been no cross, death would not have been trodden underfoot, nor hell despoiled. (read the rest)

And while I’m unleashing all my favorite things on an unsuspecting world, here too is a simple one-two punch of a sonnet from the late Cornish poet Charles Causley:

I am the great sun, but you do not see me,

I am your husband, but you turn away.

I am the captive, but you do not free me,

I am the captain you will not obey.

(read the rest)

It’s morning as I’m writing this. Outside the window a wren is scolding some unseen object of wrenly derision, and upstairs my children are still asleep. By the time you see this post, in the evening, things will have happened in a day none of us can foresee, though we’ve got it sketched out on our calendars:  9:30 orthodontist, 7:00 Cub Scouts. But if you are a person who makes a Morning Offering, or if you’ve said with Saint Joseph Pignatelli, for example,

My God, I do not know what must come to me today. But I am certain that nothing can happen to me which You have not foreseen, decreed, and ordained from all eternity. That is sufficient for me. I adore Your impenetrable and eternal designs, to which I submit with all my heart. I desire, I accept them all, and I unite my sacrifice to that of Jesus Christ, my divine Savior,

then you will have nailed it all already to that Cross we exalt.

Cross-posted . . . so to speak.

PS:  I wrote and scheduled this before I knew Elizabeth was back. It’s been a privilege and a pleasure, folks. And she’s right:  she has the best readers on the internet.