Prayer to the Holy Cross

[Rgus]

Hi

Years ago, I found a special prayer card. The card was lost, and all that I have remaining is an old faded photocopy.

To preserve and share the prayer I created a website.

Please visit holy-cross-of-christ.org/ to see the prayer. If anyone has a copy of this prayer, or recognizes it, please let me know.

Thank You

Robert

 

[Swiss_Guy]

Prayer to the Cross? I didn’t think we were supposed to pray to the Cross, albeit it’s a very sacred object.

 

[Alfonsus]

I believe it is very common in the Byzantine tradition.
For instance this prayer:

Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered; let them also that hate him flee from before him. Like as the smoke vanished, so shall thou drive them away; like as wax melteth at the fire, so let the ungodly perish at the presence of God, and let all them that love God sign themselves with the sign of the Cross, and say in joyfulness:
Rejoice, O most honourable and life-giving Cross of the Lord, put to flight the devils by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ who was crucified on thee, who descended into hell, and over-ruled the power of darkness, and gave us thee, his honourable Cross, to repulse every adversary.
O most honourable and life-giving Cross of the Lord: help me, with the holy Virgin, the Mother of the Lord, and with all the saints evermore. Amen. [from A Manual of Eastern Orthodox Prayers page 19]

I admit I’m puzzled too, perhaps because as a Latin I failed to understand the poetry of the Byzantine tradition

 

[Swiss_Guy]

I believe it is very common in the Byzantine tradition.
For instance this prayer:

I admit I’m puzzled too, perhaps because as a Latin I failed to understand the poetry of the Byzantine tradition

But how can the Cross hear us? I mean obviously the saints and God can, but the Holy Cross? I don’t have a problem asking God to protect us by the power of the Holy Cross, but I do have a problem asking the Holy Cross to protect us. :banghead:

 

[AJV]

But how can the Cross hear us? I mean obviously the saints and God can, but the Holy Cross? I don’t have a problem asking God to protect us by the power of the Holy Cross, but I do have a problem asking the Holy Cross to protect us. :banghead:

It is a form of a metaphor, and it has many parallels within our tradition. Think for example, of the number of psalms which talk “to” Jerusalem. Obviously, the psalmist is not talking to the stones or buildings or land - it is a metaphor. Or think of St. Paul “O death, where is your victory? O death where is your sting. But thanks be to God,” etc.

The Jesuit promoter of the cult of the Sacred Heart, Fr. Gallifet, offered the following relation in his book on the Sacred Heart:

What is the object of the feast of the Cross ? There are two united ; one sensible, the Cross itself; the other spiritual, Jesus crucified, working through the Cross the mystery of Redemption. The spiritual object communicates to the Cross its own dignity, and renders it, through this union, worthy of that special veneration which the entire Church offers with so much solemnity. But the festival does not take its name from the spiritual, but from the sensible and corporal object, which is the Cross itself, and hence the title, “feast of the Holy Cross.”

In the early Church and right upto the Middle Ages, there did not exist the difference we have now between the Cross and the Crucifix (Cross with the corpus of Christ). They were held to be one and the same: the image of a cross by definition, represented the Corpus, even though the latter might not be painted or engraved upon it. Thus to address the Cross, was to address the Crucified.

 

[Swiss_Guy]

It is a form of a metaphor, and it has many parallels within our tradition. Think for example, of the number of psalms which talk “to” Jerusalem. Obviously, the psalmist is not talking to the stones or buildings or land - it is a metaphor. Or think of St. Paul “O death, where is your victory? O death where is your sting. But thanks be to God,” etc.

Ok I got it. It reminds me of a prayer that is like “I adore the Holy Cross” or something like that, but it was just a hyperbole about how much we love Christ for what he has done.

In the early Church and right upto the Middle Ages, there did not exist the difference we have now between the Cross and the Crucifix (Cross with the corpus of Christ). They were held to be one and the same: the image of a cross by definition, represented the Corpus, even though the latter might not be painted or engraved upon it. Thus to address the Cross, was to address the Crucified.

That makes sense.