A Drop of Pascha to Sweeten the Fast: The Canon of the Third Sunday of the Great Fast (Veneration of the Cross)
The Canon for the Third Sunday of the Great Fast , the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross, comes as a shock. We know Sundays are always mini-Paschas, celebrations of the Resurrection, even in the depths of the Fast. (So they always have full canons, rather than the penitential three-ode canons found during weekdays, for which the Triodion is named.) We have continued to sing the resurrectional hymns from the Octoechos throughout the Fast. Yet the Canon for this week hits us with unbridled Paschal joy, for the ikoi come from the great Paschal Canon that we gloriously shout out during Paschal Matins. The Cross is the great reverser: through the Cross, a Person bearing the deathless divine nature dies; through the Cross, we deathbound men gain deathlessness. So perhaps we should not be surprised that the Cross brings a burst of joy in the middle of the somber Fast, just as its feast on September 14 is a day of fasting n the midst of the year's longest gap b...