Our Lady of Peace Church is blessed to have a relic of the True Cross. Our relics are in the baptistry in a glass cabinet.
The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, also known as the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, commemorates three events: the discovery of the True Cross in 326, its exaltation for public veneration in 335, and the recovery of the Cross from the Persians in 628. Today, this feast also celebrates the boundless impact of Christ’s Cross upon all of creation.
In 326, Constantine’s mother, Saint Helena, a devout Christian, embarked on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to identify significant sites from Christ’s
life and establish a church at each. In Jerusalem, she hoped to find the True Cross and to build a church over the sites of Mount Calvary and Jesus’ tomb, known as the Holy Sepulcher. Upon identifying Mount Calvary and the empty tomb, she discovered three buried crosses. After an investigation, the local bishop confirmed they were the crosses used to crucify Jesus and the two thieves. Since Helena did not know which cross was Christ’s, she arranged for a sick woman to touch all three. The woman was immediately healed upon touching one of them, indicating that it was the True Cross.
Although we commemorate three historical events today, the celebration’s core is not the Cross’s wood or the holy sites where Jesus died and was buried. The primary focus is the infinite love shown through the Son of God’s selfless and perfect Sacrifice and the boundless mercy that has poured forth upon the world as a result. The Cross, a cruel instrument of torture and death, is now the symbol of God’s perfect love, further magnifying that love and showcasing God’s infinite power to use the worst for the best: to use death to bring life and to transform the greatest act of cruelty ever known into the greatest act of mercy ever bestowed upon the world.
Prayer: Most glorious and triumphant Lord, You gave Your life for my soul’s salvation, using the most horrific act of cruelty as the means of Your redeeming grace. I open myself to that grace, asking You to bestow it superabundantly. May I have the courage and wisdom to embrace my crosses every day, uniting them to Your Cross, and trusting that You will use my sacrifices to further bestow Your love on the world. Saving Cross of Christ, have mercy on me. Jesus, I trust in You.