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Tuesday, September 13, 2022

‘The Epochs of Man’

The radiant Light of the Holy Cross

Divides the epochs of man:  Slavery

To the passions, before, and death; after,

A new mode of human life has appeared,

Mankind wondrously united to God.

 

St Wilfrida, feasted before the day

Of the Cross’s Elevation, obeyed

Her carnal lust and served young King Edgar

As his concubine; repenting her deeds,

She renounced the world, in time becoming

A wise abbess of Wilton Abbey,

Dying in holiness.

 

                                    Her daughter,

St Edith, she raised with her in Wilton.

St Edith, celebrated just after

The Exaltation of the Sacred Cross,

An epiphany of the new humanity:

Virgin, artist,

Friend of the poor;

Tender toward

Wild animals;

Prayerful, active,

And renouncing

Thrones of worldly

And spiritual

Authority.

Her young death at twenty-three made even

St Dunstan weep, but her miracles

Made the English forget their sorrows.

 

And we too may know unending life and joy

By the transformation of our human

Nature through the Grace of God flowing

From the Cross, His Life saturating ours.

***

The lives of Sts Wilfrida and Edith may be read here:

https://orthochristian.com/97360.html

The Feast of the Elevation of the Holy Cross is celebrated on 14 September.  The details surrounding it are here:

https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2022/09/14/102610-the-universal-exaltation-of-the-precious-and-life-giving-cross

--

Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

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