Celebrate the Exaltation of the Cross

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus,

This Sunday we celebrate the Exaltation of the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! This weekend I offer the history of this Feast and a sermon by St. Andrew of Crete on the Holy Cross. First the history:

“The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross celebrates three historical events: the finding of the True Cross by Saint Helena, the mother of the emperor Constantine; the dedication of churches built by Constantine on the site of the Holy Sepulchre and Mount Calvary; and the restoration of the True Cross to Jerusalem by the emperor Heraclius II. But in a deeper sense, the feast also celebrates the Holy Cross as the instrument of our salvation. This instrument of torture, designed to degrade the worst of criminals, became the life-giving tree that reversed Adam's Original Sin when he ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden.

History of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross: After the death and resurrection of Christ, both the Jewish and Roman authorities in Jerusalem made efforts to obscure the Holy Sepulchre, Christ's tomb in the garden near the site of His crucifixion. The earth had been mounded up over the site, and pagan temples had been built on top of it. The Cross on which Christ had died had been hidden (tradition said) by the Jewish authorities somewhere in the vicinity.

According to tradition, first mentioned by St. Cyril of Jerusalem in 348, St. Helena, nearing the end of her life, decided under Divine Inspiration to travel to Jerusalem in 326 to excavate the Holy Sepulchre and attempt to locate the True Cross. A Jew by the name of Judas, aware of the tradition concerning the hiding of the Cross, led those excavating the Holy Sepulchre to the spot in which it was hidden.

Three crosses were found on the spot. According to one tradition, the inscription Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum (‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews’) remained attached to the True Cross. According to a more common tradition, however, the inscription was missing, and St. Helena and St. Macarius, the bishop of Jerusalem, assuming that one was the True Cross and the other two belonged to the thieves crucified alongside Christ, devised an experiment to determine which was the True Cross.

In one version of the latter tradition, the three crosses were taken to a woman who was near death; when she touched the True Cross, she was healed. In another, the body of a dead man was brought to the place where the three crosses were found, and laid upon each cross. The True Cross restored the dead man to life.

In celebration of the discovery of the Holy Cross, Constantine ordered the construction of churches at the site of the Holy Sepulchre and on Mount Calvary. Those churches were dedicated on September 13 and 14, 335, and shortly thereafter the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross began to be celebrated on the latter date. The feast slowly spread from Jerusalem to other churches, until, by the year 720, the celebration was universal.

In the early seventh century, the Persians conquered Jerusalem, and the Persian king Khosrau II captured the True Cross and took it back to Persia. After Khosrau's defeat by Emperor Heraclius II, Khosrau's own son had him assassinated in 628 and returned the True Cross to Heraclius. In 629, Heraclius, having initially taken the True Cross to Constantinople, decided to restore it to Jerusalem. Tradition says that

he carried the Cross on his own back, but when he attempted to enter the church on Mount Calvary, a strange force stopped him. Patriarch Zacharias of Jerusalem, seeing the emperor struggling, advised him to take off his royal robes and crown and to dress in a penitential robe instead. As soon as Heraclius took Zacharias' advice, he was able to carry the True Cross into the church.

For some centuries, a second feast, the Invention of the Cross, was celebrated on May 3 in the Roman and Gallican churches, following a tradition that marked that date as the day on which St. Helena discovered the True Cross. In Jerusalem, however, the finding of the Cross was celebrated from the beginning on September 14.”

(from www.catholicism.about.com)

A sermon by St. Andrew of Crete: “We are celebrating the Feast of the Cross which drove away darkness and brought in the light. As we keep this Feast, we are lifted up with the crucified Christ, leaving behind us earth and sin so that we may gain the things above. So great and out-standing a possession is the Cross that he who wins it has won a Treasure. Rightly could I call this Treasure the fairest of all fair things and the costliest, in fact as well as in Name, for on it and through it and for its sake the riches of salvation that had been lost were restored to us.

Had there been no Cross, Christ could not have been crucified. Had there been no Cross, Life itself could not have been nailed to the tree. And if Life had not been nailed to it, there would be no streams of immortality pouring from Christ’s side, Blood and Water for the world’s cleansing. The legal bond of our sin would not be cancelled, we should not have attained our freedom, we should not have enjoyed the fruit of the Tree of Life and the gates of Paradise would not stand open. Had there been no Cross, death would not have been trodden underfoot, nor hell despoiled.

Therefore, the Cross is something wonderfully great and honorable. It is great because through the Cross the many noble acts of Christ found their consummation - very many indeed, for both His miracles and His sufferings were fully rewarded with Victory. The Cross is honorable because it is both the sign of God’s suffering and the trophy of His Victory. It stands for His suffering because on it He freely suffered unto death. But it is also His trophy because it was the means by which the devil was wounded and death conquered; the barred gates of hell were smashed, and the Cross became the one common salvation of the whole world.

The Cross is called Christ’s Glory; it is saluted as His Triumph. We recognize it as the cup He longed to drink and the climax of the sufferings He endured for our sake. As to the Cross being Christ’s Glory, listen to His words: Now is the Son of Man glorified, and in Him God is glorified, and God will glorify Him at once. And again: Father, glorify Me with the Glory I had with You before the world came to be. And once more: ‘Father, glorify Your Name’. Then a voice came from Heaven: ‘ ‘I have glorified It and will glorify It again’. Here He speaks of the Glo-ry that would accrue to Him through the Cross. And if you would under-stand that the Cross is Christ’s Triumph, hear what He Himself also said: When I am lifted up, then I will draw all men to Myself. Now you can see that the Cross is Christ’s Glory and Triumph.” (Sermon by St. Andrew of Crete)

Through the intercession of Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, St. Joseph, St. Michael, and St. Paul, may our Lord Jesus grant us in abundance the blessings of the Triumph of His Holy Cross!

In Christ through Mary,

Fr. Kasel