On September 14, the Church celebrates the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, one of the oldest and most significant observances in the liturgical year, yet it is also a feast that carries an apparent paradox: why celebrate and exalt an instrument that, in history, was one of the cruelest means of execution? The answer lies precisely in the meaning the Cross has assumed for Christians. It is not suffering that is exalted, nor the violence of the crucifixion, but what, according to the Christian faith, occurred through that sacrifice: the transformation of a symbol of death into the sign of the victory of life and love. The origins of the observance are rooted in the history of Jerusalem and date back to the 4th century. According to tradition, Saint Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, found the wood of Jesus’ Cross in the Holy City. The memory of this discovery is joined by that of the dedication of the great basilicas built on the sites of the Passion and Resurrection: on September 13, 335, the basilicas of the Martyrium and the Anastasis were dedicated, and the following day, the Cross was solemnly shown to the faithful. From that ancient gesture of raising and display, the celebration of September 14 was born, a feast that still unites Catholic and Orthodox traditions today. Over the centuries, another episode was added to the history of the feast: in 614, during the Persian invasion of Jerusalem, the relic of the Cross was carried off as war booty and, according to tradition, was later recovered by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius and brought back to the Holy City. This return also contributed to strengthening the meaning of the observance, transforming the Cross into a symbol of return, liberation, and victory. But it is above all its spiritual significance that makes this feast unique. The Cross, which for the Roman world represented humiliation and death, becomes in Christianity the place where God’s love for humanity is manifested. As Pope Francis has recalled, it is not just any cross that is exalted, but the Cross of Christ, because in it Christians recognize the most radical manifestation of God’s love. A concept also recently echoed by Pope Leo XIV, who defined the Cross as the sign of a transformation: an instrument of death that became, through Christ, an instrument of life and hope. This is perhaps why the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross continues to have a particular power even in the present day. It does not celebrate a victory obtained by avoiding suffering, but the possibility of not letting pain and death have the final word. In the Christian tradition, looking at the Cross therefore means confronting the fragility and wounds of life, but also the hope that something new can be born from those wounds. The date of September 14 thus recalls an ancient exhibition that took place in Jerusalem almost seventeen centuries ago, but it preserves a meaning that continues to be relevant: raising one’s gaze toward the Cross not to celebrate suffering, but to recognize, in the symbol that more than any other represented death, the possibility of rebirth. This is the reason why the Church speaks of ‘exaltation’: because what seemed to mark a defeat has become, in the Christian faith, the sign of Easter, of life overcoming death and of a hope capable of enduring even the most difficult moments.
