THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT — Tone 6. Veneration of the Cross. Martyr Nikon and 199 disciples with him in Sicily (251).
Tone 6 Troparion (Resurrection)
The Angelic Powers were at Your tomb; the guards became as dead men. Mary stood by Your grave, seeking Your most pure body. You captured hell, not being tempted by it. You came to the Virgin, granting life. O Lord, Who rose from the dead,// glory to You.
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 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 (Cross)
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)
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.”
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)
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.”
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).
Annunciation
The feast of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary comes nine months before Christmas on the twenty-fifth of March. It is the celebration of the announcing of the birth of Christ to the Virgin Mary as recorded in the Gospel of Saint Luke.
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no husband?” And the angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the Child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her (Lk 1.26–38).
The services of the feast of the Annunciation, the Matins and the Divine Liturgy, stress again and again the joyous news of the salvation of men in the birth of the Saviour.
Today is the beginning of our salvation, the revelation of the eternal mystery. The Son of God becomes the Son of the virgin, as Gabriel announces the coming of Grace. Together with him let us cry to the Theotokos: Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with you (Troparion).
A special feature of this feast is the Matinal Canon which has the character of a dialogue between the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary. Also among the more popular elements of the feast is the Magnification which has the form of our own salutation to the virgin mother with the words of the archangel:
With the voice of the archangel we cry to Thee, O Pure One: Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee! (Magnification).
The celebration of the Annunciation, therefore, is the feast of our own reception of the glad tidings of salvation, and our own glorification of the maiden Mary who becomes the Mother of God in the flesh.
Because the feast of the Annunciation normally comes during the season of Great Lent, the manner of celebration varies from year to year depending upon the particular day on which it falls. If the feast comes on a weekday of Lent, which is the most common case, the Divine Liturgy of the feast is served in the evening with Vespers and thus is celebrated after a full day of total abstinence. When this happens, the fasting rules for the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts are followed. The Divine Liturgy of the Annunciation is the only celebration of the eucharistic liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom allowed on a weekday of Great Lent.
HOMILY: St. Nikolai Velimirovic on the Weakness of Man before the Majesty of God
And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead (Revelation 1:17).
It was St. John who fell as though dead when he saw the Lord Jesus in glory. St. John—the Beloved Disciple of Jesus, the Evangelist, the chaste one, the one who loved the Lord, the zealot for holiness—could neither stand on his feet nor compose himself when he saw his Teacher in His heavenly glory and power! Instead he fell, as though dead. Therefore, how will they who sin against Him, rise up against Him, ridicule His name, despise His love and sacrifice, mock His Cross, trample upon His commandments, persecute His Church, shame His priests, and kill His faithful, endure the presence of the Lord and His eyes like a fiery flame? What will happen to them before the face of the Lord if St. John fell as dead when he caught sight of Him? What will happen to educated men who corrupt others? What will happen to teachers who destroy the Faith in young souls? What will happen to skeptics who through their doubt poison the minds of men? What will happen to thieves and robbers, to the immoral, and to the child-killers? What will happen to the enemies of Christ if the friend of Jesus falls, as though dead, before His indescribable, effulgent glory? Such is the glory, power, authority, beauty, lordship, light and majesty of the Lord Jesus, resurrected and ascended, that His closest companions, who for three years on earth gazed upon His face without fear, now fall as though dead when they see His face in the heavens following His passion, death and victory! O Lord All-glorious and Almighty, illuminate us and enliven us by Thy power and glory. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
Velimirovic, Saint Nikolai. The Prologue of Ohrid
On the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross
Because the cross of the Lord, whose power is often glorified in liturgical prayers and hymns, stands now before our eyes for pious worship and veneration, I would like, beloved, to say a few words about its power, or its miracles. With the intention to speak about this, I, on the one hand, see everywhere its miraculous power, and do not know on what aspect I should tarry longer, which incident to provide as an example of its life-giving power. I see the great veneration that ancient people devoted to the cross; on the other hand, alas, I see very few experiences of its power among our contemporaries. Immediately I see the reason it shows its strength so rarely today, the same reason the Lord performed so few miracles in His homeland, that is, because of ignorance, of lawlessness, of the unchristian way of life of the Christians. Beloved brothers and sisters, the history of the Christian Church provides a great many examples of the life-giving power of the cross, and that is because then people had more faith, there were more true Christians. The life-giving cross is gloriously glorified also in our time, but today we see fewer and fewer examples of its miraculous power, and only among those few people who live with faith.
Christ’s holy ascetics were constantly amazed at the life-giving power of the cross of the Lord, which acted in their lives, and in the humility of their hearts, and so that such power would not leave them, frail and sinful, always surrounded by invisible enemies, and often visible ones as well, prayed thus with trembling: “invincible, incomprehensible, divine power of the precious and life-giving cross do not leave us, sinners.” and without a shadow of a doubt exclaimed to it, as to someone living: “O most precious and life-giving cross of the Lord, help me together with the holy Lady Theotokos, and with all the saints unto the ages.” we read with what praise they magnified the life-giving cross. They called it the power on four ends, all-powerful cross, the glory of the Apostles, the fortitude of the martyrs, the stronghold of reverend men, health of the infirm, the resurrection of the dead, correction of those falling, mortification of the passions, the expulsion of impure thoughts, the foundation of piety, the destruction of demons, the ruin of impure people, the infamy of the enemies on the terrible day of judgment. As alive they called on it: “Oh, cross! Be for me strength, fortitude, and power, a deliverer and the leading soldier against enemies who war against me, a shield and guard, my victory and stronghold, always protecting and preserving me.”
Do you find the cross of the Lord to be for yourselves, beloved brethren, the same as it was for those holy men? For the majority of you, I can tell that the answer is no. The cross does not perform miracles in your life. Why? Because of your lack of faith. The cross is in itself always miraculous and life-giving. For Christians who are true to the cross by their faith and piety, so is the cross true to them, as the most faithful and constant friend. Oh! Who will give me divine zeal and the power of words to arouse in the Christians of our time a living faith and the reverence due to it and to the One crucified on it? I know that many are inattentive to the cross and to the sign of the cross. Sometimes this carelessness and lack of respect for the cross reach such a point that they do not receive in their houses those servants of Christ who bear the cross and who come in its name. Others do not want to sign their sinful bodies with the sign of the cross as they should, or they refuse to receive a priestly blessing; sometimes they do receive a blessing inadvertently, but sometimes—oh horror!—from false and damned shame. Are you ashamed of the cross, beloved, which is our praise and our glory? I warn you beforehand: of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels (Mark 8:38). Beloved! Let us always honor the cross of the Lord with faith and love, and it will be our friend, our Saviour, not according to its own power, but because of the power of the Crucified One. Amen.
— St. John of Kronstadt: Sergiev, Ivan Ilyich. Season of Repentance: Lenten Homilies of Saint John of Kronstadt
2025 Lenten Retreat