According to Wikipedia, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, every year on September 14th, celebrates, among other things, the finding of the true cross by Saint Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, in about 326-328 CE and the return of the true cross to Jerusalem in 629 CE. The Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and some others all claim to possess relics of the true cross as objects of veneration. Protestant and other Christian churches dispute these relics’ authenticity.
As a kid, the church my family attended in Seattle was the merger of an old Norwegian church and an old Swedish church. Being a hard-core Protestant congregation, the sanctuary was simple and unadorned by imagery of any kind. The pulpit stood in the very center of the dais and behind it, the choir loft. Behind the choir loft was a large blank wall made of concrete blocks painted light green. There was talk of hanging a cross on it, but a few objected, thinking it smacked too much of Catholicism.
The cross in the church at the monastery I like to visit has a carved, stylized image of the crucified Jesus hanging from its cross, complete with the crown of thorns, nailed hands and feet, and pierced side with a drop or two of red blood painted just below it. In contrast, the cross in the first Episcopal church I joined in Arizona had a triumphant, risen Christ joined to its cross, unblemished, a proper crown on his head and hands outstretched in welcome to those who gazed upon it.
I have friends who object this representation of the cross, saying Christ’s real glory was in his crucifixion, his ultimate sacrifice, showing the extent of his love for us. His broken, lifeless body built a bridge allowing us to pass from the realm of death to the realm of life.
Portaro writes that the cross is the sign of mortality, “the intersection—and tension—of horizontal relationship with one another and vertical relationship with God.”[1] Jesus, in foreshadowing his crucifixion, told his disciples “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). It is this cross that we superimpose on ourselves when we cross ourselves in church. We should do so considering the vertical and horizontal aspects of the cross we assume, denying ourselves in obedience to God (vertically), and responding to the needs of others (horizontal), loving our neighbor as ourselves. This is the cross we carry as we follow Christ.
[1] Sam Portaro, Brightest and Best: A Companion to the Lesser Feasts and Fasts. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), 163.
Improbable Benedictine 