September 14
Saints of the Day
 

Feast of the Holy Cross, Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Triumph of the Cross

    The sign of a Christian today is a cross, not a heart but the Cross of Christ and ours.
    The cross is today the universal image of Christian belief... but it is not the end, it is the reason of salvation. How splendid the cross of Christ! It brings life, not death; light, not darkness; Paradise, not Hell. It is the wood on which the Lord, like a great warrior, was wounded in hands and feet and side, but healed thereby our wounds of our soul, body and spirit, peace! ((Is.42:4-6).
    He who knows the value of the Cross of Christ and of his own cross knows everything, he who doesn't know it knows nothing.

    Early in the fourth century St. Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, went to Jerusalem in search of the holy places of Christ's life. She razed the Temple of Aphrodite, which tradition held was built over the Savior's tomb, and her son built the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher over the tomb. 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."

    To this day the Eastern Churches, Catholic and Orthodox alike, celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on the September anniversary of the basilica's dedication.

    In the year 627, during the reign of the emperor Heraclius I of Constantinople, the Persians conquered the city of Jerusalem and removed from its venerable Sanctuary the major part of the true Cross of Our Lord, which Saint Helen, mother of the emperor Constantine, had left there after discovering it on Calvary. The emperor resolved to win back by combat this precious object, the new Ark of the Covenant for the new people of God. Before he left Constantinople with his army, Heraclius went to the church wearing black in the spirit of penance; he prostrated himself before the altar and begged God to sustain his courage. And on leaving he took with him a miraculous image of the Saviour, determined to combat with it even unto death.

Heaven visibly assisted the valiant emperor, for his army won victory after victory. One of the conditions of the peace treaty was the return of the Cross of Our Lord, in the same condition as when it was removed. Heraclius on his return was received in Constantinople by the acclamations of the people; with olive branches and torches, they went out to meet him. And the true Cross was honored, on this occasion, in a magnificent triumph.
    According to the story, the emperor intended to carry the cross back into Jerusalem himself, but was unable to move forward until he took off his imperial garb and became a barefoot pilgrim.

http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1138
http://www.magnificat.ca/cal/engl/09-14.htm
 

Saints of September 14:

http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0914.htm

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