15 SEPTEMBER 2023
Yesterday we celebrated the Feast of the Exultation of the Holy Cross, also known as Holy Cross Day. It is a day that celebrates the finding of a relic of the true cross in Jerusalem by Saint Helena. The day also celebrates the dedication of the Church of Holy Sepulchre - the church that marks the place of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem.
Here is the history of Holy Cross Day according to Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2022, the Episcopal Church’s volume of saints and feasts:
The historian Eusebius, in his Life of Constantine tells how that emperor ordered the erection of a complex of buildings in Jerusalem “on a scale of imperial magnificence,” to set forth as “an object of attraction and veneration to all, the blessed place of our Savior’s resurrection.” The overall supervision of the work — on the site where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands —was entrusted to Constantine’s mother, the empress Helena.
In Jesus’ time, the hill of Calvary had stood outside of the city; but when the Roman city which succeeded Jerusalem, Aelia Capitolina, was built, the hill was buried under tons of fill. It was during the excavations directed by Helena that a relic, believed to be that of the true cross, was discovered.
We do not currently celebrate a Solemn Mass for Holy Cross Day at St. Mark’s, but a number of churches do mark the day with a Solemn Mass, and I have noticed that more churches are transferring the feast to the following Sunday. This Sunday we will keep The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, but our celebrations will also have echoes of Holy Cross Day. At Vespers and at the Solemn Mass, we will sing hymns associated with the feast such as “Lift High the Cross,” and at all the masses we will employ multiple collects throughout the liturgy - what might be termed “cascading collects.”
For instance, at the beginning of the masses, after we hear the Collect of the Day for Pentecost 16, we will then hear the Collect for Holy Cross Day. The same practice will happen at the offertory and postcommunion prayers. After the collects appointed for Pentecost 16, we will then hear the offertory and postcommunion collects for Holy Cross Day.
Such liturgical nuances allow us to savor the Feast of the Holy Cross beyond the day itself. We have the grand celebrations of the feast on the day itself, and then on the Sunday after the feast, we have the opportunity to continue our reflection on the feast in a lesser way.
Prior to Vatican II and the simplification of church calendars, it was common that some feast days had octaves - an eight-day period of celebration following the feast. For the weekdays after the feast, one continued to celebrate the feast, and we still find this practice with the Octave of Easter Day in our current calendar. In fact, in our modern calendar, Easter Day is the only day to have an octave, whereas in the old calendars a variety of feasts had octaves (Corpus Christi, the Nativity of John the Baptist, Saints Peter and Paul, etc.).
Interestingly enough, some octaves are implicit, while unofficial, in our modern calendar. Christmas has a twelve-day period ending with the Epiphany, but one can also see an octave that ends on January 1, the Holy Name of Jesus. The same is true with the Day of Pentecost, as eight days after Pentecost we have the celebration of Trinity Sunday.
From what I can surmise, Holy Cross Day never had an octave. In any case, it is a feast that is a true gift to the church - an opportunity to celebrate the triumph of the cross with jubilation and joy in contrast to the starker and somber nature of Good Friday. With this in mind, it cannot hurt to have echoes of the feast this coming Sunday when we gather for worship. When we celebrate St. Michael and All Angels with a Solemn Mass on Friday, September 29, in the evening, we will also employ the same concept on the following Sunday.
The calendar of the church is not merely a tool to help us keep track of dates. The calendar teaches us the faith of Jesus Christ, undergirding how we pray masses and the daily offices. As Christianity moves increasingly to the periphery of our society, the calendar helps committed Christians to number their days, focusing on what truly matters in life. As most of our world is formed by social media, pop culture, and self-help movements, we have the benefit of being formed by the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The calendar keeps us honest in observing our faith. Enjoy savoring all the feast days of Christ and his Church on the actual day, and then continue to enjoy them for the days that follow.
Father Paul Lillie +
