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September 14, 2004

Triumph of the Cross

Early in the fourth century St. Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, went to Jerusalem in search of the holy places of Christ's life. She razed the Temple of Aphrodite, which tradition held was built over the Savior's tomb, and her son built the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher over the tomb. During the excavation, workers found three crosses. Legend has it that the one on which Jesus died was identified when its touch healed a dying woman.

The cross immediately became an object of veneration. At a Good Friday celebration in Jerusalem toward the end of the fourth century, according to an eyewitness, the wood was taken out of its silver container and placed on a table together with the inscription Pilate ordered placed above Jesus' head: Then "all the people pass through one by one; all of them bow down, touching the cross and the inscription, first with their foreheads, then with their eyes; and, after kissing the cross, they move on."

To this day the Eastern Churches, Catholic and Orthodox alike, celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on the September anniversary of the basilica's dedication. The feast entered the Western calendar in the seventh century after Emperor Heraclius recovered the cross from the Persians, who had carried it off in 614, 15 years earlier. According to the story, the emperor intended to carry the cross back into Jerusalem himself, but was unable to move forward until he took off his imperial garb and became a barefoot pilgrim.

Comment:

The cross is today the universal image of Christian belief. Countless generations of artists have turned it into a thing of beauty to be carried in procession or worn as jewelry. To the eyes of the first Christians, it had no beauty. It stood outside too many city walls, decorated only with decaying corpses, as a threat to anyone who defied Rome's authority—including the heretic sect which refused sacrifice to Roman gods. Although believers spoke of the cross as the instrument of salvation, it seldom appeared in Christian art unless disguised as an anchor or the Chi-Rho until after Constantine's edict of toleration.

Quote:

"How splendid the cross of Christ! It brings life, not death; light, not darkness; Paradise, not its loss. It is the wood on which the Lord, like a great warrior, was wounded in hands and feet and side, but healed thereby our wounds. A tree has destroyed us, a tree now brought us life" (Theodore of Studios).

The Word Among Us

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Meditation
Philippians 2:6-11

The Triumph of the Cross

Today’s feast has a long history in the church. St. Helena’s discovery of the true cross was first celebrated on September 14 in a.d. 365. It was held in the church that Helena’s son, the Roman emperor Constantine, built over the site of Golgotha and the tomb of Jesus. The observance of this event spread quickly among Christians throughout the world, and in the seventh century this feast—coupled with another commemorating the restoration of the relic of the cross which had been seized by the Persians—was named the Feast of the Triumph, or Exaltation, of the Cross in the Roman calendar.

Though the ancient world shuddered at the thought of death by crucifixion—a horrific and shameful form of execution—Christians honor the cross as both the sign of Jesus’ suffering and the trophy of his victory over Satan, sin, and death. We revere the cross because through it we have come to know Jesus’ great love for us, and through the wounds that it inflicted, we have been saved and healed. As Rupert of Deutz, a twelfth-century Benedictine abbot, movingly proclaimed: “We venerate the cross as a safeguard of faith, as the strengthening of hope, and the throne of love. It is the sign of mercy, the proof of forgiveness, the vehicle of grace, and the banner of peace. We venerate the cross because it has broken down our pride, shattered our envy, redeemed our sin, and atoned for our punishment.

“The cross of Christ is the door to heaven, the key to paradise, the downfall of the devil, the uplifting of mankind, the consolation of our imprisonment, the prize for our freedom. . . . Tyrants are convicted by the cross and the mighty ones defeated. It lifts up the miserable and honors the poor. The cross is the end of darkness, the spreading of light, the flight of death, the ship of life and the kingdom of salvation.

“Whatever we accomplish for God, whatever we succeed and hope for, is the fruit of our veneration of the cross. By the cross Christ draws everything to him. It is the kingdom of the Father, the scepter of the Son, and the seal of the Holy Spirit, a witness to the total Trinity.”

“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.”