Nowadays very few people wear the Cross around their necks!
Unfortunately, nowadays, even among churchgoers, we see that very few people wear the Cross around their necks. The symbol of sacrifice and salvation is treated as an ornament to be worn with the appropriate clothing and mood.
I suppose for most people, especially the baptismal cross will be in a drawer in a state of spiders and dust, forgotten.
Instead, we choose not just jewellery or symbols, but something worse and of course not innocent. We put little eyes, little horns, little dots, etc. We choose to wear, for example, the god Ganesha (god in Hindu religion with the head of an elephant), the cross is old-fashioned. Even the sign of the cross with the hand many children do not know. It makes sense, since parents just entering the Church do something like mandolin when they approach to embrace an icon, and of course it makes sense that children would follow suit. “Whatever teacher you sit with, such letters you will learn,” the wise people say.
Some will say: “That doesn’t matter, Father.” I am sorry, my dear ones, but everything matters, everything defines behind it an intention, a disposition, a faith, a love or a plague. As an old man used to say: “Never mind one thing, never mind another, and in the end many things accumulate that do spiritual damage.”
We are ashamed to make our cross, lest we be laughed at on the train or in the street, we are ashamed to wear the cross because it doesn’t go with this or that bag or that dress. If we are not able to confess even these things, how can we confess the great things? Are we not ashamed of our child, of our man, then how are we ashamed of the cross?
Are we afraid for Christ? Are we ashamed of our faith? So the Christian is the one who will only write confessional articles on facebook or post a picture from a pilgrimage?
Really, when we are invited to a table and they say something about faith and Christ, what do we do? Do we put our heads down like wet cats, or with a smile and a confident, discerning word do we grace the world with the word of God? If that blessed day comes, as St. Matrona said, and we are told to choose Christ or bread, what shall we do?
If I can’t make the sign of the cross by passing by a church, how can I be crucified for another? When I cannot bear even this so small, and even if I will make my cross, will I check first lest someone see me and make fun of me?
The Cross is a way of life, the beginning of the way began on the day of our baptism. It is a road not paved with rose petals, but with thorns. In the end, however, it ends in the port of the kingdom of heaven.
Beloved, the Cross is for us a boast, as the Apostle to the Gentiles Paul says: “But let us not boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified with me” (Gal 6:14). That is, as far as I am concerned, I want no other reason for boasting, except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, the cross on which the world died for me and I for the world.
To wear our cross, to make our cross, to be crucified for others and to honor the Crucified One, the lover of the universal world.
p. Spyridon Skoutis
