When the Sacred Body of Jesus was taken down from the Cross and carried to the grave on Calvary, The Cross on which He died was thrown into a ditch or well, and covered over with stones and earth, so that the followers of the Crucified Redeemer might not find it.
Almost three hundred years later (312 A.D.), Constantine the Great, not yet a Christian, while battling with Maxentius for the throne of the Roman Empire, prayed to the God of the Christians to aid him in his struggle.
In answer to his prayer, a luminous cross or monogram of Christ appeared in the heavens bearing the inscription: "In This Sign You Will Conquer." In gratitude for victory, under this banner, over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge, on October 28th, 312, Constantine had the Sign of Christianity placed on the Roman standards and on the shields of his soldiers. Then came the finding of the True Cross at Jerusalem by St. Helena in 326, commemorated by a feast on May 3rd.
Legend has it that in 322, Helena, the mother of Constantine, uncovered three crosses in the excavations for the new basilicas in Jerusalem. She assumed them to be the crosses of Jesus and the two wrongdoers. Macarius, the bishop of Jerusalem, brought in a dying woman and had her touch the crosses. The third one cured her, and that cross was proclaimed the cross of Christ. It became an object of veneration in Jerusalem until it was stolen in the seventh century, but Heraclius of Constantinople captured and returned it in 629, bringing it into the city, where it was lifted up for all to venerate again. This exaltation of the holy cross gave us a feast day on September 14 every year.
Grace Mizzi
www.mmponline.org
Send Oh Lord Holy Apostles into your church“Christ has no body but yours, no hands butyours, no feet but yours.Yours are the eyes through which Christ’scompassion must look upon the world.Yours are the feet with which He is to go about
doing good.Yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.”St. Theresa of Avila
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The Cross
Posted - Oct 23 2008 : 3:50:56 PM
