Today is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-giving Cross. David Melling has some thoughts on the place of the cross in worship at his Arimathea web site.


I have come to the depths of the sea, and a storm of many sins has drowned me; but as God lead my life back from corruption, as you love mankind.

As he hung on you, O Cross, the Creator was willingly pierced in the side and poured out blood and water, through which we who greet you with faith have been refashioned.

Life-endowed wood of the Cross, fount of immortality, redemption of the whole world, save us who greet you as our saving protection.

You have been given to us as an unbreakable weapon, through which we may overcome all the ambuscades of the adversaries, O divine Cross, we who reverently greet you in uprightness of soul.

(From the vespers for the Forefeast of the Exaltation of the Cross, trans. by Archimandrite Ephraim.