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For Christians, the cross is our portal into
heaven and eternal life with Christ. Jesus suffered
and died on the cross to save us; we suffer in unity
with Him to purify our souls. The cross is our
salvation!

The Cross is a Thing of Beauty
Saying that the Cross is a thing of beauty when
it represents suffering and death may at first seem to
be a gross contradiction. But isn’t what Jesus did for
us a magnificent moment in Christianity? By that it
is made beautiful.
Artist throughout the ages have glorified the
cross in their stunning works of art. In ancient
Christianity, the cross was portrayed as an anchor
or the Chi-Rho. But after Constantine’s edict of
toleration for all religions, artists became bolder,
eventually making the cross a true thing of beauty,
whether it is depicted as a plain cross or a crucifix
with a corpus (body).
The beauty of the cross is multi-faceted. It can
be viewed by all as an object of art; or it can be
explicitly adopted as the world’s salvation.
St Helena c. 1495
CIMA da Conegliano
Oil on panel, 40 x 32 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington

Celebrating the True Cross
The Church celebrates the cross in many
ways - by making the sign of the cross in prayer,
on the forehead of the child in Baptism, and in
every sacrament thereafter.
Yet, the cross deserves a feast of its own to
give the faithful an opportunity to share in the
triumph of the cross. This feast is the Feast of the
Exaltation of the Cross, when the Church gives
all believers a day to see their lives united with
Christ in the cross.
Thanks to St. Helena and her son Emperor
Constantine, the True Cross was found; the
pagan sites replaced with churches to honor the
Alessandri Crucifixion 1480-81 True Cross; and a feast initiated by which the
Andrea della Robia cross transcends the symbol of suffering to
Glazed terracotta, 600 x 420 cm shine as the symbol of salvation. SJM
Chiesa Maggiore, La Verna

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