May Crown: Finding of the Holy Cross

It's May 3, and as promised; here's another poem in honor for the Blessed Virgin Mary

If two of you shall agree on earth about anything at all for which they ask, it shall be done for them by My Father in heaven. St. Matthew 18:19

May 3 of every year is also the day to commemorate "The Finding of the Holy Cross" by Saint Helen, mother of Constantine the Great, who resolved to build a magnificent church in the City of Jerusalem. Saint Helen made a journey into Palestine in 326 A.D., inspired with a great desire to find the identical cross on which Christ Our Lord had suffered for our sins, in order to build the proposed church on the site of Calvary.

The Roman pagans who were dominated by an aversion to Christianity had done what they could to conceal the place where our Saviour was buried by heaping on it a great quantity of stone and rubbish, and building there a temple to Venus. They had also erected a statue of Jupiter in the place where Our Lord rose from the dead. The Emperor's mother ordered the profane buildings to be pulled down, the statue broken in pieces, and the rubbish removed. And then, upon digging to a great depth, the holy sepulchre was uncovered.

Near it were found three crosses and the nails which had pierced Our Saviour’s body, with the title which had been fixed to His cross. By this discovery they knew that one of those three crosses was the one they sought, and that the others belonged to the two criminals between whom Our Saviour had been crucified. But because the title was found separate from the cross, it was difficult to distinguish which of the three crosses was the one on which our Redeemer consummated His sacrifice for the salvation of the world. In this perplexity the holy Bishop of Jerusalem Macarius, knowing that one of the principal ladies of the city lay ill and at the point of death, suggested to the Empress to have the three crosses carried to the sick person, not doubting that God would reveal which one was the cross they sought. Saint Macarius prayed that God would have regard to their faith, and then he applied the crosses, one after another, to the patient. She was immediately and perfectly cured by the touch of the True Cross, after the others had been tried without effect.

Saint Helen, full of joy at having found the treasure which she had so earnestly sought and so highly esteemed, built a church on the site and placed the cross there with great veneration, after providing for it an extraordinarily rich silver reliquary. She afterwards carried part of it to her son Constantine at Constantinople, who received it with great veneration; and another part she took to Rome, to be placed in the church which she built there, called Church of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem, where it remains to this day.

The Church of the Holy Cross is located on a Roman imperial estate and is built into part of the Sessorian Palace. Several sources, including an inscription in the church, verify that the Sessorian Palace was owned by the empress St. Helen, Constantine's mother.

The discovery of the cross would have happened in the spring, after navigation began on the Mediterranean Sea, for Saint Helen went the same year to Constantinople and from there to Rome, where she died in the arms of her son on the 18th of August of the same year, 326.

Reflection: In all pious undertakings, above all in the sanctification of the soul, the mere beginning does not suffice. “Whoever perseveres to the end, he shall be saved.” Matt. 24:13

Sources:  Lives of the Saints in May  and  Sacred Destinations: Rome, Italy