A friend shared this story as a part of his homily on Sunday. The message was titled, “Exaltation of the Cross”. I found it quite interesting and I thought I would share it.
The feast of the exaltation of the cross goes back a long way. In 326 the Emperor Constantine’ mother, Helena, at the grand age of 80, set sail for Jerusalem to find the cross of Jesus and his tomb. She found the site of the Holy Sepulchre and established a church on the site, which is venerated to this day.
The true cross was more elusive. It was claimed that the Jewish leaders had hidden the cross in a well in Jerusalem. One of the Jewish leaders told the Empress Helena in which well to look for it. The story goes that they dug for days and found three crosses. They weren’t sure which one was the true cross, so the bishop of Jerusalem, St Macarius, sent the crosses off to the bed-side of a dying woman. She touched the first two crosses to no effect, but on touching the third cross she immediately recovered. St Helena had found her true cross.
The cross remained in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem until the early 7th century. The entire city was then looted by the Persian King, Chosroes II. He took the cross to Persia. In 628, Emperor Heraclius II overthrew the Persian king and brought the cross first to Constantinople, his capital and then in 629 to Jerusalem. Today’s feast commemorate the triumphant return of the holy cross to Jerusalem.
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