Living The Worthy Life- The Nature Of The True Cross

This is the time and this is the place - the time and place to look at Christianity and the Cross.

Bishop Fulton Sheen explained it this way,”The modern world, which denies personal guilt and admits only social crimes, which has no place for personal repentance but only public reforms, has divorced Christ from His Cross; the Bridegroom and Bride have been pulled apart. What God hath joined together, men have torn asunder. As a result, to the left is the Cross; to the right is Christ. Each has awaited new partners who will pick them up in a kind of second and adulterous union. Communism comes along and picks up the meaningless Cross; Western post-Christian civilization chooses the unscarred Christ.”

Bishop Sheen said those words 70 years ago but they ring as true today as they did then.  The modern world has adopted an odd attitude toward Christ. He continued, “The Western post-Christian civilization has picked up the Christ without His Cross. But a Christ without a sacrifice that reconciles the world to God is a cheap, feminized, colourless, itinerant preacher who deserves to be popular for His great Sermon on the Mount, but also merits unpopularity for what He said about His Divinity on the one hand, and divorce, judgment, and hell on the other. This sentimental Christ is patched together with a thousand commonplaces, sustained sometimes by academic etymologists who cannot see the Word for the letters, or distorted beyond personal recognition by a dogmatic principle that anything which is Divine must necessarily be a myth. Without His Cross, He becomes nothing more than a sultry precursor of democracy or a humanitarian who taught brotherhood without tears.”

When a Church worries more about the ministries of the Church than the words of Christ- what happens to that Church?  Today the landscape is dotted with beautiful Churches all across the world- dedicated to good works or ministries to help people-but the question may should be redirected somewhat and asked more like  this way, “Are these Churches dedicated to Christ? Can you truly have Christ in your life if you do not honor the sacrifice of Christ on the cross? You see without the Cross we would not have had a resurrection and without that we would not have the Gospel.  The Gospel is the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ trampling and defeating death. He came to earth so that we could see the way. 

Therefore, we should embrace the Cross as a symbol of what Jesus did for us and a symbol of the fact that we too in the future will live eternally with him. The Cross is something we should know a great deal more about. 

September 14th is the feast day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, also known as the Triumph of the Cross or the Elevation of the Cross. This is the day the Church celebrates both the discovery and the recovery of the True Cross of Jesus Christ. It also marks the dedication of the one of the most famous churches in all Christianity.

St. Helena  326 

The Roman Emperor Constantine’s mother, St. Helena, a convert to Christianity, went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to locate where the important events in the life of Jesus Christ occurred, and to preserve the relics of the Christian faith that remained there. One of her goals was to find the place of Jesus’ crucifixion and the very Cross on which he was hung.

Through interviewing many locals, and with the assistance of the Bishop of Jerusalem, St. Macarius, she discovered the spot and found the True Cross which had been previously hidden by the Jews.

According to the historian Rufinus, the identity of the True Cross was confirmed by a miraculous healing after St. Macarius recited this prayer:

“O Lord, who by the Passion of Thine only Son on the cross, didst deign to restore salvation to mankind, and who even now hast inspired thy handmaid Helena to seek for the blessed wood to which the author of our salvation was nailed, show clearly which it was, among the three crosses, that was raised for Thy glory. Distinguish it from those which only served for a common execution. Let this woman who is now expiring return from death’s door as soon as she is touched by the wood of salvation.”

The date of this discovery and miracle, according to tradition, was May 3rd, 326 A.D. St. Helena had a church built on the original site of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial, and resurrection, known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  Her son Constantine dedicated this church on September 13-14 in the year 335 A.D. Even today, the Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem, or the Via Dolorosa, end at this very spot.  

Feast Days

The True Cross was considered a most valuable treasure of the Church and became a highly venerated object, and the feast honoring the Elevation of the Holy Cross has continually been celebrated until this day. It is celebrated on May 3rd on the old Roman calendar (the date of its discovery), and on September 14th in Jerusalem and on the new Roman calendar (the date the church was dedicated).

The True Cross Was Taken By The Persians and Then Taken Back By An Emperor

The Cross of Christ was kept by the Church in Jerusalem, but was absconded by the Persian King Chosroas, in the year 614 A.D. after the Persian invasion of Syria and Palestine. In the year 629 A.D. the Cross was recovered and brought back to Jerusalem by Emperor Heraclius of Constantinople. The relic of the True Cross was then restored to its place in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Tradition has it that Emperor Heraclius carried the Cross on his back, a public act of homage, in order to restore it to its rightful place; but, he was only able to move it after he had removed his royal garments and put on the humble garments of repentance instead.

The date the True Cross was brought back to Jerusalem was September 14th! The anniversary of the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the date on which Jerusalem celebrated the feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross.

TIMELINE OF EVENTS

326 A.D.: St. Helena discovers the True Cross in Jerusalem on May 3rd.

335 A.D.: Constantine dedicates the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on September 14th.

614 A.D.: Jerusalem is invaded by the Persians who steal the True Cross.

629 A.D.: The True Cross is recovered and brought back to Jerusalem on September 14th.

Can we have Christianity today without the Cross?

No, we can not.  The Cross unites heaven and earth and bridges the temporal death on this earth with spiritual life.  Through the Cross we will all live. The Cross is the symbol of His power, His will and His might.  

As many people in the world today are running away from embracing the Cross, I say embrace it.  Let it be your guide, let it be your beacon, let it be your refuge. We need to know that in a world filled with dangers- there is a place where good can triumph over evil.  We do not need a good person telling us this- we need Christ. We need Christ now more than ever. As many retreat from the pews and become lovers of self worth, I tell you to turn towards the tried and true Cross.  Seek ye the Kingdom of God first and your life here will be rewarded. This is true today, true yesterday and true in 326 when St. Helena rediscovered the True Cross.