SEPTEMBER 14
THE EXALTATION OF THE
HOLY CROSS
The Liturgical
Year
Ven. Abbot Dom
Gueranger
‘Through thee the precious cross is
honoured and worshipped throughout the world.’ Thus did Saint Cyril of Alexandria
apostrophize our Lady on the morrow of that great day, which saw her divine maternity
vindicated at Ephesus. Eternal Wisdom has willed that the octave of Mary’s
birth should be honoured by the celebration of this feast of the triumph of the holy cross. The cross indeed
is the standard of God’s armies, whereof Mary is the Queen; it is by the cross
that she crushes the serpent’s head, and wins so many victories over error, and
over the enemies of the Christian name.
‘By this sign thou shalt conquer.’ Satan
had been suffered to try his strength against the Church by persecution and
tortures; but his time was drawing to an end. By the edict of Sardica, which
emancipated the Christians, Galerius, when about to die, acknowledged the
powerlessness of hell. Now was the time for Christ to take the offensive, and
for His cross to prevail. Towards the close of the year 311, a Roman army lay
at the foot of the Alps, preparing to pass from Gaul into Italy. Constantine,
its commander, thought only of revenging himself
for an injury received from Maxentius, his political rival; but his soldiers,
as unsuspecting as their chief, already belonged henceforward to the Lord of
hosts. The Son of the Most High, having become, as Son of Mary, king of this
world, was about to reveal Himself to His first lieutenant, and, at the same
time, to discover to His first army the standard that was to go before it. Above
the legions, in a cloudless sky, the cross, proscribed for three long
centuries, suddenly shone forth; all eyes beheld it, making the western sun, as
it were, its footstool, and surrounded with these words in characters of fire:
IN HOC VINCE by this be thou conqueror!
A few months later, October 27, 312, all the idols of Rome stood aghast to
behold, approaching along the Flaminian Way, beyond the bridge Milvius, the
Labarum with its sacred monogram, now become the standard of the imperial armies.
On the morrow was fought the decisive battle, which opened the gates of the
eternal city to Christ, the only God, the everlasting King.
‘Hail, O cross, formidable to all enemies, bulwark of the Church, strength of
princes; hail in thy triumph! The sacred Wood still lay hidden in the earth,
yet it appeared in the heavens announcing victory; and an emperor, become
Christian, raised it up from the bowels of the earth. Thus sang the Greek Church yesterday, in preparation for
the joys of today; for the east, which has not our peculiar feast of May 3,
celebrates on this one solemnity both the overthrow of idolatry by the sign of
salvation revealed to Constantine and his army, and the discovery of the holy
cross a few years later in the cistern of Golgotha.
But another celebration, the memory of which is fixed by the Menology on
September 13, was added in the year 335 to the happy recollections of this day;
namely, the dedication of the basilicas raised by Constantine on Mount Calvary
and over the holy sepulchre, after the precious discoveries made by his mother
St. Helena. In the very same century that witnessed all these events, a pious
pilgrim, thought to be St. Silvia, sister of Rufinus the minister of Theodosius
and Arcadius, attested that the
anniversary of this dedication was
celebrated with the same solemnity as Easter and the Epiphany. There was an immense
concourse of bishops, clerics, monks, and seculars of both sexes, from every
province; and the reason, she says, is that the ‘cross was found on this day’;
which motive had led to the choice of the same day for the primitive
consecration, so that the two joys might be united into one.
Through not being aware of the nearness of the dedication of the Anastasia,
or church of the Resurrection, to the feast of the holy cross, many have misunderstood
the discourse pronounced on this feast by Sophronius the holy patriarch of
Jerusalem. ‘It is the feast of the cross; who would not exult? It is the
triumph of the Resurrection; who would not be full of joy? Formerly, the cross
led to the Resurrection; now it is the Resurrection that introduces us to the
cross. Resurrection and cross: trophies of our
salvation!’ And the pontiff then developed
the instructions resulting from this connexion.
It appears to have been about the same time
that the west also began to unite in a certain manner these two great mysteries;
leaving to September 14 the other memories of the holy cross, the Latin
Churches introduced into Paschal Time a special
feast of the finding of the Wood of
redemption. In compensation, the present solemnity acquired a new lustre to its
character of triumph by the contemporaneous events which, as we shall see, form
the principal subject of the historical legend in the Roman liturgy.
A century earlier, St. Benedict had appointed this day for the
commencement of the period of penance known as the monastic Lent, which
continues till the opening of Lent proper, when the whole Christian army joins
the ranks of the cloister in the campaign of fasting and abstinence. ‘The
cross,’ says St. Sophronius, ‘is brought before our minds; who will not crucify
himself? The true worshipper of the sacred Wood is he who carries out his
worship in his deeds.”
The
following is the legend we have already alluded to
About the end of the reign of the emperor
Phocas, Chosroes king of the Persians invaded Egypt and Africa. He then took
possession of Jerusalem; and after massacring there many thousand Christians,
he carried away into Persia the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, which Helena
had placed upon Mount Calvary. Phocas was succeeded in the empire by Heraclius;
who, after enduring many losses and misfortunes in the course of the war, sued
for peace, but was unable to obtain it even upon disadvantageous terms, so
elated was Chosroes by his victories. In this perilous situation he applied
himself to prayer and fasting, and earnestly implored God’s assistance. Then,
admonished from heaven, he raised an army, marched against the enemy, and
defeated three of Chosroes’ generals with their armies. Subdued by these
disasters Chosroes took to flight; and, when about to cross the river Tigris,
named his son Medarses his associate in the kingdom. But his eldest son Siroes,
bitterly resenting this insult, plotted the murder of his father and brother.
He soon afterwards overtook them in flight, and put them both to death. Siroes
then had himself recognized as king by Heraclius, on certain conditions, the
first of which was to restore the cross of our Lord. Thus, fourteen years after
it had fallen into the hands of the Persians, the cross was recovered; and on
his return to Jerusalem, Heraclius, with great pomp, bore it back on his own
shoulders to the mountain whither our Saviour had carried it. “This event was signalized by a remarkable
miracle. Heraclius, attired as he was in robes adorned with gold and
precious stones was forced to stand still at the gate which led to Mount
Calvary. The more he endeavoured to advance, the more he seemed fixed to the
spot. Heraclius himself and all the people were astounded; but Zacharias, the
bishop of Jerusalem, said: Consider, O
emperor, how little thou imitatest the poverty and humility of Jesus Christ, by
carrying the cross clad in triumphal robes. Heraclius thereupon laid aside
his magnificent apparel, and barefoot, clothed in mean attire, he easily
completed the rest of the way, and replaced the cross in the same place on
Mount Calvary, whence it had been carried off by the Persians. From this event,
the feast of the Exaltation of the holy cross, which was celebrated yearly on
this day, gained fresh lustre, in memory of the cross being replaced by
Heraclius on the spot where it had first been set up for our Saviour.
The victory thus chronicled in the sacred
books of the Church, was not, O cross, thy last triumph; nor were the Persians thy
latest enemies. At the very time of the defeat of these fire-worshippers, the prince of darkness was raising up a new
standard, the crescent. By the permission of God, whose ensign thou art, and
who, having come on earth to struggle like us, flees not before any fee, Islam
also was about to try its strength against thee: a twofold power, the sword and
the seduction of the passions. But here again, alike in the secret combats between
the soul and satan, as in the great battles recorded in history, the final
success was due to the weakness and folly of Calvary.
Then, O cross, wert the rallying-standard of all Europe in those sacred
expeditions which borrowed from thee their beautiful title of crusades, and
which exalted the Christian name in the east. While on the one hand thou wert
thus warding off degradation and ruin, on the other then wert preparing the
conquest of new continents; so that it is by thee that our west remains at the
head of nations. Through thee, the warriors in those glorious campaigns are inscribed
on the first pages of the golden book of nobility. And now the new orders of
chivalry, which claim to hold among their ranks the élite of the human race,
look upon thee as the highest mark of merit and honour. It is the continuation
of today’s mystery, the exaltation, even in our times of decadence, of the holy
cross, which in past ages was the standard of the legions, and glittered on the
diadems of emperors and kings.
It is true, men have appeared in France, who have made it their aim to
overthrow the sacred sign, wheresoever our fathers had honoured it. This invasion
of the servants of Pilate into the country of the crusaders was inexplicable,
until it was discovered that they were in Jewish
pay. These, as St. Leo says of the Jews
in today’s Office, see in the instrument of salvation nothing but their own
crime; and their guilty conscience
makes them hire, to pull down the holy
cross, the very men whom they formerly
paid to
set
it up. The coalition of such enemies is but one
more homage to thee! O adorable cross, our glory and our love here on earth,
save us on the day when thou shalt appear in the heavens, when the Son of Man,
seated in His majesty, is to judge the world!
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