On Monday, September 14th, the Church celebrates the Feast Day of the Exaltation of the Cross. It was early in the fourth century that Saint Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, who made Christianity the state religion (Edict of Constantine 313), went to Jerusalem in search of the holy places where Jesus walked. On her journey, she discovered the Holy Sepulcher of Jesus Christ. It was defamed by the pagans who erected a temple to the god Aphrodite (goddess of pleasure, passion and procreation). This pagan building was so incongruent with what lie beneath it, that St. Helena and her son Constantine ordered the temple be destroyed and a new one built. During the excavation of this new Basilica (soon to be named Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher) workers found three buried crosses. The story is told that one of three crosses was touched by a dying woman who was immediately healed. They knew it was the very cross of our Savior, Jesus Christ. St. Helena ordered that 1/3 of the discovered cross remain in Jerusalem. The other third she ordered be brought to Rome and deposited in the Sessorian Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (Holy Cross in Jerusalem). The final third be taken to Constantinople to make the city impregnable from enemies with the help of Christ’s cross. Adoring or remembering the very instrument used in Jesus’ death should remind us that our life at times will bring many crosses. That’s why we must never forget and hold our crosses up to His cross! The feast of the Triumph of the Cross may not be an answer, but a promise. A promise that to all who lift up their life’s burdens to His cross, will never suffer alone and to that end, WILL HAVE ETERNAL LIFE. Fr. Roach
