Brothers and Sisters,
Today, September 14, is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (also called the Triumph of the Cross).
Helena, mother of Constantine, around 326 in Jerusalem. Three crosses were unearthed near Calvary; the True Cross was identified when it miraculously healed a dying woman.
Church of the Holy Sepulchre was dedicated on 13 September 335.
The relic was solemnly exalted before the people the next day—14 September—and the feast was born.
In 614 the relic was carri... more
Brothers and Sisters,
Today, September 14, is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (also called the Triumph of the Cross).
Helena, mother of Constantine, around 326 in Jerusalem. Three crosses were unearthed near Calvary; the True Cross was identified when it miraculously healed a dying woman.
Church of the Holy Sepulchre was dedicated on 13 September 335.
The relic was solemnly exalted before the people the next day—14 September—and the feast was born.
In 614 the relic was carried off by the Persians; Emperor Heraclius defeated them and returned it to Jerusalem in 628–630. Tradition says he first approached in imperial splendor and could not enter; only after he laid aside his robes and walked barefoot, in humility like Christ, could he restore the Cross.
“Of all the holy and wonderful places, the Sepulchre somehow holds first rank. I do not know why a greater devotion is felt at the place where He lay dead than at the places where He did things while alive, or why the memory of His death moves us more than the memory of His life.
His life has given me a pattern for living; His death, a release from death. The one prepared life; the other destroyed death. His life was laborious, His death precious—and both are necessary. What would His death profit the man who lives badly? What would His life profit the man who dies under condemnation?
He came, then, that we might learn by His life to live in holiness, and by His death to die in confidence. He died as one destined to rise, and to those who undergo death He brought the hope of rising again. He added a third gift, without which the other two would be nothing: the remission of sins.
Man stood condemned to a double death in his double nature—one spiritual and voluntary, the other bodily and forced. The God-Man healed both by one bodily and voluntary death. Dying once, He killed our two deaths. He took our debt without sharing our sin. If He had not suffered in the body, He would not have paid the debt; if the death had not been voluntary, it would have had no merit.”
Chapter 11 — The Holy Sepulchre
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Liber ad milites Templi de laude novae militiae (c. 1130)
We adore You, O Christ, and we bless You,
because by Your holy Cross You have redeemed the world
CAA Patricia Fraser
Priory of St. Michael the Archangel
Fides Et Veritas
CAA Rene Laperriere
Priory of the Calvary Cross
Militia Christi