Reflection on Feast of the Holy Cross with Fr Robin Gibbons

Sep 13th, 2013

True Cross Reliquary Byzantine 800C

Saturday, 14th September - Feast of the Holy Cross

We ought to make more of this great feast for it is observed by both eastern and western Christian churches. It is called by various names, the Exaltation of the Cross, the Triumph of the Cross, Holy Cross Day and in the Greek tradition, the Raising Aloft of the Precious and Life Giving Cross. The antiquity of the festival is indisputable for it commemorates two events in the first millennium of the Christian Church.

The first marks the consecration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 335 which took place on two days, September 13 and 14. Linked to this was the veneration of the wood of the cross( found by St Helena, Mother of Constantine in 325) On the 14th the relics were placed outside the great church for all the crowds to see and this became the day linked both to its veneration and initial finding .

The second event is the return of the relics of the Cross to Christian hands in 628. The Persians had ransacked the Church and taken the relics away but they were later recaptured by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius II who took them to Constantinople, but in 629 brought them back in triumph to Jerusalem.

However there is so much more, in the East it is celebrated as one of the twelve great feasts of the Church and on the feast day the image of the cross is brought into the church and venerated in great splendor. To remind us of its deep salvific connection, the Assyrian Church not only celebrates this feast in great style but states that the sign of the cross itself is ‘sacrament’ for it seals other sacraments and hallows liturgical events. In the west the Benedictine monastic family marks this day as the beginning of their ’winter’ following St Benedicts prescriptions in his rule.

We need to recover a sense of the great power of the cross and its importance both as a symbol of human evil but also of the ultimate triumph of Christ in love and self- giving. Let us be proud to place the symbol of the cross in our homes and to make it a prayer each time we sign ourselves with it. By your cross and resurrection O Christ, you have set us free, you have redeemed the world!