The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross commemorates the discovery of the True Cross by Saint Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine in 326 AD.

During the excavation near the site of Christ's crucifixion, workers found three crosses. Legend has it that the one on which Jesus died was identified when its touch healed a dying woman. The cross was divided into three parts, with one part remaining in Jerusalem, one part sent to Rome, and a third part sent to Constantinople.

The cross immediately became an object of veneration. At a Good Friday celebration in Jerusalem toward the end of the fourth century, the wood was taken out of its silver container and placed on a table together with the inscription Pilate ordered placed above Jesus’ head: Then “all the people pass through one by one; all of them bow down, touching the cross and the inscription, first with their foreheads, then with their eyes; and, after kissing the cross, they move on.”

The feast is a celebration and commemoration of God's greatest work: his salvific death on the Cross and His Resurrection, through which death was defeated and the doors to Heaven opened.

For Christians, the Cross is the crossroads of history and the Tree of Life. Christianity without the Cross is meaningless: Only by uniting ourselves to Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross can we enter into eternal life.

Other Saints of the Day

1. Saint Albert of Jerusalem
2. Saint Crescentius of Rome
3. Saint Maternus of Cologne
4. Saint Victor of Carthage
5. Saint Notburga