The cross is our all-sufficing treasure and Christ’s love our never-ending reward.
– James Otis Sargent Huntington, in The Rule for the Order of the Holy Cross
We are celebrating the feast of the cross which drove away darkness and brought in the light. As we keep this feast, we are lifted up with the crucified Christ, leaving behind us earth and sin so that we may gain the things above. So great and outstanding a possession is the cross that whoever wins it has won a treasure. Rightly could I call this treasure the fairest of all fair things and the costliest, in fact as well as in name, for on it and through it, and for its sake, the riches of salvation that had been lost were restored to us.
– from a homily of Andrew of Crete
The cross is the abyss of wonders, the centre of desires, the school of virtues, the house of wisdom, the throne of love, the theatre of joys, and the place of sorrows. It is the root of happiness, and the gate of heaven.
If love be the weight of the soul, and its object the centre, all eyes and hearts may convert and turn unto this object, cleave unto this centre, and by it enter into rest. There we may see God’s goodness, wisdom, and power, yea, his mercy and anger displayed. There we may see our sin and infinite value, our hope and fear, our misery and happiness.
This glorious object is the root of comforts and the fountain of joys. It is a well of life beneath in which we may see the face of heaven above, and the only mirror wherein all things appear in their proper colours.
– Thomas Traherne, in Centuries of Meditations