The Victory of the Cross Quotes

“Every cross which has saving power is a cross which I carry not only on account of my own sins, but also on account of the sins of others. I should bend and bow in carrying my neighbour with his cross, and in bowing and bending I spiritually form the horizontal line, the humbling line of the cross, in order that the one whom I carry may form the vertical line as I carry him on my shoulders. Our moral weakness and powerlessness, our insufficient responsibility towards God and our neighbours, these form our cross.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“The revelation of the spirit is not produced by suffering alone, but by the understanding which it can awaken in the spirit. If man refuses to open the eyes of his spirit, refuses to see what is beyond the material world, and continues to think of himself as exclusively identified with the material world, then the cross of suffering can be of no profit to him. Finally, such a man being without hope and in the course of time losing the very possibility of escaping into selfish and material pleasures—which at least give him some feeling of being alive—must sink into darkness and despair over the total non-sense of life. Such a one is lost by the cross for eternity.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“If man refuses to open the eyes of his spirit, refuses to see what is beyond the material world, and continues to think of himself as exclusively identified with the material world, then the cross of suffering can be of no profit to him. Finally, such a man being without hope and in the course of time losing the very possibility of escaping into selfish and material pleasures—which at least give him some feeling of being alive—must sink into darkness and despair over the total non-sense of life. Such a one is lost by the cross for eternity.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“The cross points us to the resurrection, and to the way which leads to the resurrection. The Fathers say that he who is nourished by the cross is nourished by the tree of life. By the cross the world and our own life become transparent.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“For he did not overcome pleasure and pain by a sort of stoic insensibility, an inability to feel; he mastered them through the strengthening of his spirit, thus at the same time preserving yet transfiguring our full human sensibility to suffering and our tendency to want to escape from it. His cross means that the spirit is victorious over matter without making matter of no effect, but by transfiguring the material world through the response of a will wholly given to God.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“For he did not overcome pleasure and pain by a sort of stoic insensibility, an inability to feel; he mastered them through the strengthening of his spirit, thus at the same time preserving yet transfiguring our full human sensibility to suffering and our tendency to want to escape from it.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“Indulgence in pleasure only pushes a man into a further attempt to escape from pain in further pleasure. While man by his will can renounce pleasure, he can never wholly avoid pain and sorrow. He can only overcome his sorrow, that is to say, remain in it, carrying his cross, without taking refuge in a new pleasure which would bring with it a new pain, and so on till at the end of his life, death will come as the final sorrow. Christ overcame pleasure, that is to say, the human tendency towards pleasure, by remaining in grief, victoriously bearing the cross, as the ultimate pain”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“In refusing this relationship with God, man falls altogether out of the human condition, for the true human condition consists in our ability to hear the word of God, to enter into personal relationship with God. And, consequently, he also loses the ability of hearing his neighbour’s word to him, and of entering into true relationship with him. He falls from reality into a shadowy, pseudo-reality, into outer darkness. And here we find another suffering, another cross, but this is an unwilling cross, a cross without hope. The selfish, egotistic person suffers much more than the one who wishes to help others. In refusing relationship with others we jump out of reality, for the reality of the world and of our own person can only be truly and fully lived when we are aware of our responsibility and of our fault, and are willing to carry our cross for others.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“For he who recognises himself as guilty recognises his own personal responsibility and his insufficiency in working it out, while he who does not recognise himself as guilty cannot recognise himself as responsible. Such a man in his actions does not respond to God, and he refuses to admit that he has not replied as he should in the past to God and to others.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“For sin means egotism; and love, the pure love of Christ, surpasses and destroys all egotism—all selfishness.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross

“The way of the cross is the only way which leads us upwards, the only way which carries creation towards the true heights for which it was made. This is the signification which we understand of the cross of Christ.”
― Dumitru Stăniloae, The Victory of the Cross