May 3
THE FINDING OF THE HOLY CROSS
It was most just that our Divine King
should show himself to us with the sceptre of his power, to the end, that
nothing might be wanting to the majesty of his empire. This sceptre is the
Cross; and Paschal Time was to be the Season for its being offered to him in
glad homage. A few weeks back, and the Cross was shown to us as the instrument
of our Emmanuel’s humiliation, and as the bed of suffering whereon he died;
but, has he not, since then, conquered Death? And what is his Cross now, but a
trophy of his victory? Let it then be brought forth to our gaze; and let every
knee bend before this sacred Wood, whereby our Jesus won the honor and praise
we now give him!
On the day of his Birth at Bethlehem,
we sang these words of the Prophet Isaias: A Child is born unto us, and a Son
is given unto us, and his government is upon his shoulder. We have seen him
carrying this Cross upon his shoulder, as Isaac carried the wood for his own
immolation; but now, it is no longer a heavy burden. It is shining with a
brightness that ravishes the eyes of the Angels; and, after having received the
veneration of man, as long as the world lasts, it will suddenly appear in the
clouds of heaven, near the judge of the living and the dead, a consolation to
them that have loved it, but a reproach to such as have treated it with
contempt or forgetfulness.
Our Saviour did not think the time
between his Resurrection and Ascension a fitting one for glorifying the
Instrument of his victory. The Cross was not to be brought into notice, until
it had subjected the world to Him whose glory it so eloquently pro claimed.
Jesus was three days in the tomb; his Cross is to lie buried unknown to men,
for three centuries: but it is to have its Resurrection, and the Church
celebrates this Resurrection to-day. Jesus would, in his own good time, add to
the joy of Easter by miraculously revealing to us this sacred monument of his
love for mankind. He entrusts it to our keeping, — it is to be our consolation,
— as long as this world last: is it not just, that we should love and venerate
it?
Never had Satan’s pride met with a humiliation
like that of his seeing the instrument of our perdition made the instrument of
our salvation. As the Church expresses it in her Preface for Passiontide:”he
that overcame mankind by a Tree, was overcome by a Tree.” Thus foiled, he
vented his fury upon this saving Wood, which so bitterly reminded him, both of
the irresistible power of his Conqueror, and of the dignity of man who had been
redeemed at so great a price. He would fain have annihilated the Cross; but
knowing that this was beyond his power, he endeavored to profane it, and hide
it from view. He therefore instigated the Jews to bury it.
At the foot of Calvary, not far from
the Sepulchre, was a deep hole. Into this was the Cross thrown, together
with those of the two Thieves, the Nails, the Crown of Thorns, and the
Inscription, or Title, written by Pilate. The hole was then filled up with
rubbish and earth, and the Sanhedrim exulted in the thought of its having
effaced the memory of the Nazarene, who could not save himself from the ignominious
death of the Cross.
Forty years after this, Jerusalem was
destroyed by the Romans, — the instruments of God’s vengeance. The Holy
Places were desecrated by the idolaters. A small temple to Venus was erected on Calvary, and another to Jupiter
over the Holy Sepulchre. By this, the pagans intended derision;
whereas, they were perpetuating the knowledge of two spots of most sacred
interest. When peace was restored under Constantine, the Christians had but to
remove these pagan monuments, and their eyes beheld the holy ground that had
been bedewed with the Blood of Jesus, — and the glorious Sepulchre. As to the
Cross, it was not so easily found. The sceptre of our Divine King was to be
raised up from its tomb by a royal hand. The saintly Empress Helen, Constantine’s
Mother, was chosen by heaven to pay to Jesus, — and that, too, on the very spot
where he had received his greatest humiliations, — the honors which are due to
him as the King of the world. Before laying the foundations of the Basilica of
the Resurrection, this worthy follower of Magdalene and the other holy women of
the Sepulchre was anxious to discover the Instrument of our Salvation. The Jews
had kept up the tradition of the site where it had been buried: the Empress had
the excavations made accordingly. With
what holy impatience must she not have watched the works! And with what ecstasy
of joy did she not behold the Redeeming Wood, which, though not, at first,
distinguishable, was certainly one of the three Crosses that were found! She
addressed a fervent prayer to the Saviour, who alone could reveal to her which
was the trophy of his victory; the Bishop, Macarius, united his prayers with
hers; and their faith was rewarded by a miracle, that left them no doubt
as to which was the true Cross.
The glorious work was accomplished,
and the Church was put in possession of the instrument of the world’s
Redemption. Both East and West were filled with joy at the news of this
precious discovery, which heaven had set on foot, and which gave the last finish
to the triumph of Christianity. Christ completed his victory over the Pagan
world, by raising thus his Standard, — not a figurative one, but his own real
standard, — his Cross, which, up to that time, had been a stumbling-block to
the Jews, and foolishness to the Gentiles; but before which every Christian is,
henceforth, to bend his knee.
Helen placed the Holy Cross in the
Basilica that had been built by her orders, and which covered both the glorious
Sepulchre and the hill of the Crucifixion. Another Church was erected on
the site, where the Cross had lain concealed for three hundred years, and the
Faithful are enabled, by long flights of steps, to go down into the deep
grotto, which had been its tomb. Pilgrims came, from every part of the world,
to visit the hallowed places, where our Redemption had been wrought, and to
venerate the sacred Wood of the Cross. But God’s merciful providence willed not
that the precious pledge of Jesus’ love for mankind should be confined to one
only Sanctuary, however venerable it might be. Immediately after its discovery,
Helen had a very large piece cut from the Cross; and this fragment she destined
for Rome, the New Jerusalem. The precious gift was enshrined in the Basilica
built by her son Constantine in the Sessorian garden, and which was afterwards
called the Basilica of Holy-Cross-in-Jerusalem.
By degrees, other places were honored
by the presence of the Wood of the Holy Cross. So far back as the 4th Century,
we have St. Cyril of Jerusalem attesting that many of the Pilgrims used to
obtain small pieces of it, and thus carried the precious Treasure into their
respective countries; and St. Paulinus of Nola, who lived in the same Century,
assures us that these many gifts lessened not the size of the original Relic.
In the 6th Century, the holy Queen, St. Radegonde, obtained from the Emperor
Justin 2nd a large piece from the fragment that was in the imperial treasury of
Constantinople. It was for the reception of this piece of the True Cross into
France, that Venantius Fortunatus composed the Vexilla Regis, — that beautiful
Hymn which the Church uses in her Liturgy, as often as she celebrates the
praises of the Holy Cross. After several times losing and regaining it,
Jerusalem was, at length, forever deprived of the precious Relic.
Constantinople was a gainer by Jerusalem’s loss. From Constantinople,
especially during the Crusades, many Churches of the West procured large
pieces. These again supplied other places; until, at length the Wood of the
Cross was to be found in almost every town of any importance. There is scarcely
to be found a Catholic, who, sometime or other in his life, has not had the
happiness of seeing and venerating a portion of this sacred object. How many
acts of love and gratitude have not been occasioned by this? And who could fail
to recognize, in this successive profusion of our Jesus’s Cross, a plan of
divine providence for exciting us to an appreciation of our Redemption, on
which rest all our hopes of eternal happiness ?
How dear, then, to us should not this
day be, which blends together the recollection of the Holy Cross and the joys
of the Resurrection of that Jesus, who, by the Cross, has won the throne to
which we shall soon see him ascend! Let us thank our Heavenly Father for his having
restored to mankind a treasure so immensely precious as is the Cross. Until the
day comes for its appearing, with himself, in the clouds of heaven, Jesus has
entrusted it to his Spouse, as a pledge of his second Coming. On that day, he,
by his divine power, will collect together all the fragments; and the Tree of
Life will, then, gladden the Elect with its dazzling beauty, and invite them to
eternal rest beneath its refreshing shade.
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