30.09.2021,
“Save Your people, O Lord, and bless Your inheritance. Grant victory to Your faithful against enemies, and protect Your People by Your cross.”
Third Antiphon of the Divine Liturgy
Today, on the 30th of September, 2021, we celebrate the fifth anniversary of the dedication of our Byzantine Chapel to the Holy, Precious, and Life-Giving Cross of Our Savior Jesus Christ. Through the generosity of our benefactors and friends this sacred space has become a place of daily prayer, intercessions and thanksgiving, reconciliation and communion with God.
“The Holy Cross and our salvation,” – to call to mind the words of the main celebrant of the liturgy of consecration, Archbishop Borys Gudziak – “is a paradox and a mystery. God in His sovereignty has chosen to effect our salvation in a way that we would never have imagined. The Pantocrator depicted in the center of our chapel, who holds all things, comes down, becomes one of us, lives the moments that become the feasts of our salvation. In the end, in order to conquer our enemy and to loosen the shackles that bind us to fears, anxieties, doubts, conflicts, wars, and death itself, He was raised on a cross. That is the paradox: that we prevail when we submit; we win when we lose; the seed bears fruit when it dies; we will be first when we are last. Let this feast be an opportunity to give ourselves to this Mystery, to fully give ourselves to this paradox to enjoy its triumph, to laugh in its joy, and to walk in peace with God and our neighbor.”
This year the celebration for the dedication of the chapel began last night with Great Vespers, followed by an all-night vigil and adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, and concluding today with Matins and a solemn Divine Liturgy. Having put the Holy Cross before our eyes as the sign of God’s victory, and thus our own victory as well, we enter into a new and blessed academic year at the ITI.