Stand In The Gap With Us As We Honor Exaltation of the Holy Cross 9/14/2024.  The universal symbol of the Christian faith, the cross represents Christ's victory over death. The feast celebrates the redemptive transformation of a barbaric instrument of torture into a divine “tree of life” that brings hope to humankind.

This could also be a great day to go through your home and ensure that each room has a cross or crucifix in it, which is an old Catholic tradition. Pray the stations of the cross– another perfect prayer activity for today!

Early in the fourth century, Saint Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, went to Jerusalem in search of the holy places of Christ’s life. She razed the second-century Temple of Aphrodite, which tradition held was built over the Savior’s tomb, and her son built the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher on that spot. During the excavation, 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 immediately became an object of veneration. At a Good Friday celebration in Jerusalem toward the end of the fourth century, according to an eyewitness, 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.”