THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT — Tone 3. Veneration of the Cross. Repose of St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and Enlightener of North America (1925—March 25 O.S.).
Tone 3 Troparion (Resurrection)
Let the heavens rejoice! Let the earth be glad! For the Lord has shown strength with His arm. He has trampled down death by death. He has become the first born of the dead. He has delivered us from the depths of hell, and has granted to the world//great mercy.
Tone 1 Troparion of the Cross
O Lord, save Your people, and bless Your inheritance! Grant victories to the Orthodox Christians over their adversaries; and by virtue of Your Cross,//preserve Your habitation!
Tone 1 Troparion (St. Tikhon)
Let us praise Tikhon, the Patriarch of All Russia, and Enlightener of North America, an ardent follower of the apostolic traditions, and good pastor of the Church of Christ, who was elected by Divine Providence, and laid down his life for his sheep! Let us sing to him with faith and hope, and ask for his hierarchical intercessions: keep the Church in Russia in tranquility, and the Church in North America in peace; gather her scattered children into one flock, bring to repentance those who have renounced the True Faith, preserve our lands from civil strife,//and entreat God’s peace for all people!
Tone 3 Kontakion (St. Tikhon)
Today the assembly of New Martyrs / stands together with us in the Church / and together we raise a festive song / celebrating the uncovering of the relics of our Hierarch Father Tikhon / who defeated the enemy and preserved the Faith / While protecting the flock entrusted to him. / For he ever prays for us all / that we may never be deprived of the Love of God.
Tone 7 Kontakion (Cross)
Now the flaming sword no longer guards the gates of Eden; it has been mysteriously quenched by the wood of the Cross. The sting of death and the victory of hell have been vanquished; for You, O my Savior, have come and cried to those in hell://“Enter again into Paradise!”
Tone 6 Prokeimenon
O Lord, save Your people, / and bless Your inheritance! (Ps. 27:9a)
V. To You, O Lord, will I call. O my God, be not silent to me! (Ps. 27:1a)
Tone 1 Prokeimenon (St. Tikhon)
My mouth shall speak wisdom; / the meditation of my heart shall be understanding. (Ps. 48:3)
Hebrews 4:14-5:6 (Epistle)
Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness. Because of this he is required as for the people, so also for himself, to offer sacrifices for sins. And no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was. So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him: “You are My Son, today I have begotten You.” As He also says in another place: “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”
Hebrews 7:26-8:2 (Epistle, St. Tikhon)
For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever. Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.
Tone 8
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!
V. Remember Your congregation, which You have purchased of old! (Ps. 73:2)
V. God is our King before the ages; He has worked salvation in the midst of the earth! (Ps. 73:13)
Tone 2
V. The mouth of the righteous shall proclaim wisdom, and his tongue shall speak of judgment. (Ps. 36:31)
Mark 8:34-9:1 (Gospel)
When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” And He said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power.”
John 10:9-16 (Gospel, St. Tikhon)
I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.
3rd Sunday of Great Lent: Veneration of the Cross
The Third Sunday of Lent is that of the Veneration of the Cross. The cross stands in the midst of the church in the middle of the lenten season not merely to remind men of Christ’s redemption and to keep before them the goal of their efforts, but also to be venerated as that reality by which man must live to be saved. “He who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Mt.10:38). For in the Cross of Christ Crucified lies both “the power of God and the wisdom of God” for those being saved (1 Cor.1:24).
Repose of Saint Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow, Enlightener of North America
When Vasily was still a boy, his father had a revelation about each of his children. One night, when he and his three sons slept in the hayloft, he suddenly woke up and roused them. He had seen his dead mother in a dream, who foretold to him his imminent death, and the fate of his three sons. She said that one would be unfortunate throughout his entire life, another would die young, while the third, Vasily, would be a great man. The prophecy of the dead woman proved to be entirely accurate in regard to all three brothers.
In 1888, at the age of 23, Vasily Belavin graduated from the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy as a layman, and returned to the Pskov Seminary as an instructor of Moral and Dogmatic Theology. He led an austere and chaste life, and in 1891, when he turned 26, he took monastic vows. The meek and humble young man was given the name Tikhon in honor of Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk. He was transferred from the Pskov Seminary to the Kholm Theological Seminary in 1892, and was raised to the rank of archimandrite. Archimandrite Tikhon was consecrated Bishop of Lublin on October 19, 1897, and returned to Kholm for a year as Vicar Bishop of the Kholm Diocese. On September 14, 1898, Bishop Tikhon was made Bishop of the Aleutians and Alaska.
As head of the Orthodox Church in America, Bishop Tikhon was a zealous laborer in the Lord’s vineyard. He did much to promote the spread of Orthodoxy, and to improve his vast diocese. He reorganized the diocesan structure, and changed its name from “Diocese of the Aleutians and Alaska” to “Diocese of the Aleutians and North America” in 1900. In 1905, the American Mission was made an Archdiocese, and Saint Tikhon was elevated to the rank of Archbishop. He had two vicar bishops: Bishop Innocent (Pustynsky) in Alaska, and Saint Raphael (Hawaweeny) in Brooklyn to assist him in administering his large, ethnically diverse diocese. In June of 1905, Saint Tikhon gave his blessing for the establishment of Saint Tikhon’s Monastery. In 1907, he returned to Russia, and was appointed to Yaroslavl, where he quickly won the affection of his flock. When Saint Tikhon was transferred to Lithuania on December 22, 1913, the people of Yaroslavl voted him an honorary citizen of their town. After the February Revolution and formation of a new Synod, Saint Tikhon became one of its members. On June 21, 1917, the Moscow Diocesan Congress of clergy and laity elected him as their ruling bishop. On August 15, 1917, a local council was opened in Moscow, and Archbishop Tikhon was raised to the dignity of Metropolitan, and then elected as chairman of the council. The council had as its aim to restore the life of Russian Orthodox Church on strictly canonical principles, and its primary concern was the restoration of the Patriarchate. All council members would select three candidates, and then a lot would reveal the will of God. On November 5, following the Divine Liturgy and a Molieben in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, a monk removed one of the three ballots from the ballot box, which stood before the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God. Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev announced Metropolitan Tikhon as the newly elected Patriarch. In his messages, he called on people to fulfill the commandments of Christ, and to attain spiritual rebirth through repentance. On September 25, 1919, when the civil war was at its height, he issued a message to the clergy urging them to stay away from political struggle. In 1924, Patriarch Tikhon began to feel unwell. He checked into a hospital, but would leave it on Sundays and Feast Days in order to conduct services. On Sunday, April 5, 1925, he served his last Liturgy, and died two days later. Saint Tikhon is also commemorated on September 26 / October 9 (the day of his glorification); October 5/18 (Synaxis of Moscow Saints); November 5/18 (his election to the Patriarchal throne); January 25 / February 7 (Synaxis of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, if it is a Sunday, if not, then on the nearest Sunday to January 27; February 9/22 (the Discovery of his relics).
The Knowledge of God
In the person of Christ, we can see that humility is a quality of God., a feature of His hypostasis. God is not God if He is not humble. And neither can I be like god unless I am humble. Indeed, without humility, I’ll become a demon. Humility must therefore be a condition of my being. I must embrace humility, knowing that, when I live in humility, I live in God.
What is humility? It is, as we have been saying, the life of God, the form of divine life, and we see this clearly in the life of Christ, who descended from heaven to extreme lowliness. In everything that concerns Him we find lessons of humility. He was born in a cave, and placed not in a crib but in a trough. He grew up in the house of a poor carpenter. He was subject to His mother and Joseph. He was taught, and applied Himself to lessons He did not need to learn. He accepted baptism from the hands of John His servant. When He was slandered and arrested and threatened with death, He did not make use of His marvelous powers (Mt. 26:53). He subjected Himself to temporal authority. He was brought before the high priest as if he were a common criminal, and then led to the governor. He silently bore insults and false accusations, and in silence He submitted to His sentence, although with one word He could have refuted false witnesses. He was spat upon by the lowest and vilest of men. He surrendered Himself to death on the cross, the most shameful form of death known to man. From His birth to the end of His life, He displayed humility in all things. And this is why St. Isaac the Syrian says that “humility is the raiment of divinity.” (Homily 77)
Following the example of Christ, humility is the distinguishing characteristic of the Christian life, and the foundation for our relation with God. The more humble we are, the more God will reveal Himself to us. And the more we know about God, the more humble we become. We all need the virtues, but without humility they achieve nothing. Even fasting, prayer, and love itself can do nothing without humility. But when prayer and fasting are joined with humility, we become the companion of God, and enter the divine environment in such a way that, as we’ve said, we become gods ourselves.
We must not seek to know God, or anything else from or about God. We must rather humble ourselves. God will then come to us and give us that which we desire. If you don’t humbly acknowledge your spiritual poverty, you won’t be able to ask God to give you the treasures of His grace. But through humility and prayer, God pours out the riches of His knowledge, granting us communion in His own life.
But rather than being filled with the knowledge of God, we normally live with a void at the center of our existence. There is a hole in our heart, into which crawl all the cares and worries of life. We work ourselves to exhaustion in pursuit of success and happiness. We struggle to improve our position in society, to attend the right schools, and move in the right kinds of circles. But the void within us is always on the increase. Nothing in the world can fill it, because it can only be filled by God.
But we mustn’t despair, because despair itself is a sign of pride, and thus will take us even further away from the humble God. Avoid that road. Resist temptation, struggle, take up your cross, and God will come and find you, wherever you are. As He did to Adam, He’ll ask you where you are, what’s happened, and extend His hand to you. You will awake from your spiritual confusion, and you’ll see Him wishing to draw you toward greater knowledge of Him.
Then, the empty place within you will become like the ark of the covenant. It will become a holy place in which God will dwell. Though your heart was a tomb in which Christ was dead, it will now be filled with light, with angels sitting on either side of it, as the resurrected Christ comes to meet you. For your part, you need to endure a little darkness, and struggle against temptations; to hold fast when you feel like despairing. But don’t despair. God will come.
Another problem we have is that we tire easily. When it comes to worldly pursuits, our energy knows no bounds, but we grow weary very quickly when God is concerned. Those who chase after wealth or glory never tire of doing so. Others pursue sensual pleasures, tirelessly chasing after sin. But even the thought of running after God leaves us feeling fatigued. We get tired, and then we forget, and then we’re led astray by the world. But then something happens to make us think of God, and so we make promises and resolutions, but, after a little while, forget all about them, and so it goes round and round. But think about the material things you’re chasing after and accumulating in great piles: they’re all banal, fleeting, and utterly without meaning.
If you are able to see this, then sink the eyes of your soul deep into your heart – be it ever so twisted and perverted – and ask God to take over. Hovering over the chaos of your life, God will shine His light, and the abyss of hell that was in you will be transformed into heaven. God is humble, and will not shrink from entering into your sinful heart in order to rescue you from sin. That’s God! And only God can do this. No one and nothing else in this world can raise you from your state of death. There is no other cure for your wound, no other remedy for what ails you. In whatever you do, choose the path of humility, and God will Glorify you. In that way you will travel on a safe and sure road, having angels as your companions, and quickly arrive at the house of God. Christ will acknowledge you as His own disciple, and shall grant you His peace, for He says: Learn from me, because I am meek and humble of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls (Mt. 11:29).
-Archimandrite Aimilianos (of blessed memory) of Simonopetra, The Way of the Spirit
Sunday Bulletin March 17, 2024