Vigils Reading – St Andrew

O CROSS, SO LONG DESIRED

From a sermon by St Bernard5

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Today we celebrate the festival of St Andrew, and if we ponder it lovingly we shall find much for the building up of our souls…

You will surely have noticed how St Andrew, when he reached the place where the cross was prepared, was strengthened in the Lord, and began to utter those burning words, through the Spirit whom he had received in tongues of fire, along with the other apostles… His mouth spoke from the abundance of his heart, and that love which burned in his heart flashed forth as bright flame in his voice. And what did blessed Andrew say, when as I said, he saw in the distance the cross which had been prepared for him? ‘O cross,’ he said, ‘so long desired and now made ready for my eager spirit! With joy and confidence I come to you, therefore do you too receive me gladly, as the disciple of him who hanged on you; for I have always been your lover and have longed to embrace you’…

From where come such hitherto unknown joy and exultation? Whence such constancy in fragility? Whence, in a mere human, such spiritual ardor, such burning love, such vigor of soul? Far be it from us to imagine that it comes from his own strength. It is a perfect gift coming down from the Father of lights, for he alone does great wonders. It was indeed the Spirit, beloved brethren, who came to the aid of his weakness, through whom that love strong as death was poured into our hearts, indeed it is stronger than death. May God give us a share in it!… If we grow weary and sleep at vigils, it is only because of our feeble spirit. If the Holy Spirit is present, doubtless he helps our infirmity; what he did for St Andrew on

the cross and in his death, he will also do for us in our toil and penance: not only will he make these seem no longer burdensome, he will even make them a desire and a delight. ‘My Spirit’, says the Lord, ‘is sweeter than honey’, so that the bitterness of death, no matter how bitter, would not be able to lessen its sweetness…

Let us seek this Spirit, my brethren, let us do our utmost to gain him, or to possess him more fully if he is not already in us. Because ‘anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him’. ‘We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God’.

We must take up our cross with St Andrew, or rather, with him whom St Andrew followed, the Lord our Savior. The cause of his joy and exultation was that he was dying not only for his Lord but also with him, in like manner, that suffering with him he might reign with him. And we too, if we are to be crucified with him, let us listen with the ears of our heart to his voice saying: ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me’… For in the cross is our salvation, provided we cleave to it firmly… To us who are being saved it is the power of God’. May he make us worthy too, victoriously to carry to the end whatever cross of repentance we have taken up in his name, he who is God above all, blessed through the ages