Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14th)

This feast commemorates a discovery made around the year 320 by the empress, St. Helena, the mother of the emperor Constantine. From Rome, she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in search of the holy places of Jesus’ life and had been told where it was believed that he had been entombed. Excavation began.

Tradition holds that three crosses were found, just as there had been three crosses at Calvary: one for Jesus and one for each of two criminals, between whom he was crucified. It is said that there was no way to distinguish which one of the three would have held Jesus: that is, until a woman who was gravely ill was brought forth and asked to touch the crosses. It was when she touched the third cross that her body was restored and they knew without doubt which was the cross of Jesus.  

About ten years later, Helena’s son, Constantine, built an enormous round church on that excavation site: the Anastasis. By a system of colonnades, it was connected to another massive church, a basilica called the Martyrium.

Over the centuries, in the conflicts over occupation of the Holy Land, as well as natural disasters, the churches were destroyed and rebuilt. The present building that stands on that sight, built in 1149, is known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

We must understand: the cross, up to the time of that discovery, had been a symbol of shame and embarrassment. We wouldn’t have seen a cross hanging on the wall of the home of the early Christians. Nor would it have occurred to them to make jewelry from such a scandalous symbol.

Prior to the time of Helena’s discovery, the cross was regarded only as an instrument of torture used by the Romans, a form of punishment so brutal that they wouldn’t even subject their own citizens to it.

But gradually the cross came to be regarded differently, as an object of devotion and veneration. On Good Friday in Jerusalem, it was placed on a table and people would process past it, each bowing, touching the cross with their foreheads, their eyes and then reverencing it with a kiss.

For us today, each Good Friday we consider the cross only in the context of Jesus’ anguish, his abandonment, and his execution. Yes, we should regularly consider the cross and what it means regarding Jesus’ suffering and his sacrifice. But on this feast day—the Exaltation of the Holy Cross—we’re asked to look at it from a different perspective. We’re asked to acknowledge it as a sign of victory.

It’s a statement that our God is so great, He can take an instrument of torture and death and change it into a sign of hope. The Gospel we hear today speaks of that hope-filled triumph, as Jesus uses a double-entendre, saying: “just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” It is his being raised up on the cross, like the serpent on the pole, that parallels with his being raised up to eternal life in heaven. The cross is to be a sign of an all-powerful love that eventually overcomes any and all human darkness.

As people who bear these crosses in our homes and as jewelry, we must ask: Are we people of hope? Are we living authentically as Christians? Because if we’re not people of hope—hope that strives to look beyond immediate uncertainties, immanent sorrow and death—then we’ve missed the point of our faith.

Christian hope doesn’t deny the fact that life is sometimes hard and painful, that it doesn’t always go as we might immediately wish, or that life doesn’t go on forever. Events in these recent weeks that have been front and center in the news have made that abundantly clear. The cross and Christian hope do not deny that there is evil at work in our world. But the cross demands we see beyond all that. Mindful of how our Sacred Scriptures begin by telling us of a tree and the sorrowful result with which it is associated, we bear in mind that the same Scriptures conclude with cause for rejoicing, telling us of yet another tree, altogether bountiful and life-giving (Rev 22), a clear symbol of victory. On this Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross we declare (from Crux Fidelis):

Faithful cross, above all other: one and only noble tree!

 None in foliage, none in blossom, none in fruit thy peer may be:

 sweetest wood and sweetest iron, sweetest weight is hung on thee.

And so we mark ourselves with the sign that reminds us of the victory of death: In the name of the Father, + the Son, and the Holy Spirit.