One of the most astonishing scriptures I have ever read was that of the words of the Lord to Ananias concerning the blinded Saul who had just encountered Christ on the road to Damascus, “…for I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” Not exactly one of the most reassuring promises of God that one reads in the Bible–and yet the way of suffering and of the Cross is the Way of Salvation.

I have begun to understand this with my mind and I pray that when the time of serious trial comes I will stand firm. Yet everyday I resist my cross. Everyday I strain against the nails that hold me fast and scream in agonized protest over the smallest inconveniences and little pains of my everyday life and reality. These little sufferings, these little insults and unmet expectations–these are just as much my cross as a call to martyrdom. And yet, like Peter, shortly after earnestly pledging to follow Him, even unto death, I betray Him with my sinful tongue, deny Him with my unloving actions towards others.

The expectation of this Feast – Elevation of the Life-Giving Cross of our Lord is always a very sensitive, sublime…at the same time I feel inner reprimands of myself…as at these days I am preoccupied with the realisation that I carry my own, individual cross in a way, far from the one I should.
“…not my will, but Thine be done, Father” – so simple phrase, but it’s so difficult to say it with the full heart, being completely honest with myself, and – honest in front of God then…If a person says & feels this, even some disputable & tough situations, he begins to learn how to carry his cross worthily.

I think that practicall all Christians, when going to the Vespers this day, keep in their mind also their individual crosses, think over their lives, and we face the question – how do we carry our crosses? are we at least worthy of God a little? My answer is – no. worthy cross-carrying is humility. Otherwise we feel more burden rather than blessing carrying our cross. and it seems to us so heavy!

This Feast is directly connected to each of us. We all come to the foot of the Holy Cross carrying there our all small crosses. and they are so heavy for us. even that we realise they are so small in comparison with Jesus’ Cross. we complain, we grumble. How I myself would like to jump happily from this life to another – from paradise on the Earth onto Paradise in Heavens! The mere idea seems funny. and impossible in practice. and – what is more serious – it is not Christianity at all. This is something opposite, and fantastic at the same time.

I often thought – why is it so? Why do we often consider our crosses so unjustifiably heavy & unberable? Today I thought – maybe because we don’t perceive (and quite unwilling to) crosses of others, don’t understand (and don’t try to) other souls? We cannot realise that “me is you”! Often the feeling of the heaviness of our cross is reinforced only because of the fact that we don’t feel the burden & heaviness of our neighbours’ crosses, even do not think of them. We are even afraid to look into other person’s heart, respond to his pain, get involved inter his problem. We try to avoid all these complications as they might make our cross even more heavy…the paradox is that the more we try to avoid fulfillment of God’s Commandments, the more we try to hide, the heavier our cross becomes; and having escaped one problem, we fall into the other one, even more serious…

For us our ego is the centre of the Universe, around which other planets, other souls revolve. Maybe, if we shake off our ego, we would not feel that sharply our load.

We also, besides carrying our own cross, drag with us many things that are unnecessary, needless – like addition weighn onto the balloon, and sencerely wonder why we cannot part from the Earth & fly higher… Often, only when something really serious happens to us, then we start seeing like in the mirror the vanity of our empty feelings, worthless aims, pointless effort…as actually what we often call problems are not they are indeed. God, who carried our sins, being innocent, will definitely help those His disciples who tend to fulfil His will, will give them force to carry their crosses. If we manage to become more united, more soft-hearted, more responsive to pain & sorrows of others, our crosses would not seem to us as a burden or loads, but as blessings & gifts…