The most common symbol of the Christian religion is what used to be a device for murdering criminals. The Romans set up crosses outside the city walls. Criminals were nailed or tied to them and left there to suffocate slowly. After they were dead, their naked bodies were left hanging as a warning to anyone who passed by.

Since then, many writers of the church have reflected on the meaning of the cross on which Jesus died. A sign of shame has become a sign of honor. In dying on the cross, Jesus became one with the poorest, the outcast, the least among us.

A beautiful legend is told about the cross: When God sent Adam and Eve out of paradise, they carried with them a seed from the tree of life. After they died, their children buried them with the seed. >From their bodies grew a new tree, which in time was cut down to make the wood of Jesus’ cross, a new tree of life. The cross spread its four beams to wrap around creation, to join earth and heaven.

We Christians make the sign of the cross when we enter or leave a church, when we eat our meals, when we go to sleep at night and when we awake in the morning. The cross is our protection in danger and a constant reminder of God’s love. Before we were baptized, we were marked with the sign of the cross. That stamped each of us as a Christian.

The Feast of the Holy Cross began in the year 335, when churches in Jerusalem, built on the sites of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, were dedicated. It became a major feast, and any Christian who could make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem would try to be there for the celebration. The whole 40-day period between Transfiguration Day (August 6) and Holy Cross Day became a time of pilgrimage to welcome the autumn season.

Christians in Ethiopia have a special love for this day. Crosses are put on poles and decorated with wild flowers. Every household set one up outdoors. People sing and dance around the holy cross. But they do not feast. Today is a strict fast day, like Good Friday, on the Eastern Christian calendar. In the presence of the tree of Paradise, no one eats. Adam and Eve’s sin of eating the fruit of the tree will not be repeated this day.

From Companion to the Calendar, M.E.Hynes