Sign of the cross

“ Some curious facts of undoubted authenticity are related of the power of the holy sign when made even by strangers to Christianity. And this sets off its efficacy as it is made in the church. Now, our author laments, and, we fear, with good reason, that the sign of the cross is fast becoming obsolete among a large number of Catholics. Those who make it at all, too often make it very imperfectly and carelessly. ”

“ In making the sign of the cross, the priest should take care not to move the hand over-quickly, and to trace lines that are straight and of equal length. The length of the lines, in blessing the people, should not exceed those used in blessing himself. All other crosses, except those made at the announcement of the Gospel and with the host over the chalice, are about a palm in length. ”

“ The sign of the Cross is always made very slowly and solemnly, quite differently from other Churches, and from right to left upon the breast, and it is always accompanied by a slow and reverent bowing of the head, and is repeated usually three times. ”

“ It is from the period of the Crusades especially that we must date the wide-spread erection of crosses and use of cross-forms throughout Europe. Worn as a badge or charm, worked in silk or chaced in metal, towering in stone by the wayside or overshadowing the busy market, gleaming on banners, or resplendent in jewels in the solemnity of the Church,—everywhere the holy sign met the eye. ”

“ We have seen how the cross was erected in the busy market and beneath the shadow of the great Cathedral, where crowds hurried to and fro, day by day, for business or devotion. It was not alone in such populous places, however, that the sign of salvation reared itself to cheer the weary traveller through life’s ways by a message of faith, of hope, of divine love. In the village street, the lonely trackless moor, the meadow pathway and the king’s high-road, at every turn and in every place in mediæval England one met the same sacred memorial. ”

“ They very willingly make the sign of the Cross, as they see us make it, raising their hands and eyes to Heaven and pronouncing the words, "Jesus, Mary," as we do,—so far that, having observed the honor we render to the Cross, these poor people paint it on their faces, chests, arms, and legs, without being asked to do so. ”

“ We assuredly see the sign of a cross naturally, in the ship when it is carried along with swelling sails, when it glides forward with expanded oars; and when the military yoke is lifted up it is the sign of a cross; and when a man adores God with a pure mind, with arms outstretched. ”

“ The symbol of Phallic worship, the cross, has become the emblem of Christianity. I quote again from our English authoress: “We find the cross in India, Egypt, Thibet, Japan, always as the sign of life-giving power; it was worn as an amulet by girls and women, and seems to have been specially worn by the women attached to the temples [sacred prostitutes] , as a symbol of what was, to them, a religious calling. The cross is, in fact, nothing but the refined phallus, and in the Christian religion is a significant emblem of its Pagan origin ”

“ In remote places the sacred sign has been spared in scattered instances for more appreciative days; in more populous centres the cross has been preserved in a secularised form, its symbol gone, and with it its meaning; but amid the wreck of so much, we must receive gratefully the fragments that remain.
The strictly church crosses, those that once stood on altar or on rood-screen, that led the stately procession, or cast their benign shadows athwart the graves of the faithful—these were all swept away. ”

“ In many places a triumphal cross is placed in the midst of the church; to teach us, that from the midst of our hearts we must love the Redeemer: who, after Solomon's pattern, 'paved the midst of his litter (ferculum) with love for the daughters of Jerusalem:' [Footnote 181] and that all, seeing the sign of victory, might exclaim. Hail, thou Salvation of the whole world, Tree of our Redemption: and that we should never forget the love of God, who, to redeem His servants, gave His only son, that we might imitate Him crucified. But the cross is exalted on high, to signify the victory of Christ. ”

“ Furthermore, Christians are bound to confess that the Cross, which used to be an instrument of punishment, is a powerful sign of our salvation, and that a little bread and wine is changed, by virtue of certain words pronounced over it, into the Body and Blood of Christ, the heavenly food of our souls, and as such has to be adored. ”

“ The image of a dead man stretched out upon the Cross is a purely Christian addition to a purely pagan emblem, though some of the old Hindoo crosses remind one of it very powerfully. No matter upon which continent we look we see everywhere the same cruciform sign among peoples and races most distinct. There perhaps has never been so universal a symbol, with the exception of the serpent. ”

“ The full and solemn ritual for the consecration of a church, as still used throughout the major part of Christendom, involves a frequent use of the sacred sign. By a law of Justinian, the building of a church might not be undertaken until the bishop of the diocese had visited the proposed site, and fixed thereon with solemn prayer “the precious cross.” ”

“ S. Cyril of Jerusalem, in a like spirit, instructs his catechumens “not to be ashamed of the Cross of Christ, but openly to mark it on the forehead, and to use that sign in eating and drinking, sitting and lying, rising from bed, conversing and walking, in a word, on all occasions.”
S. John Chrysostom in his fifty-fifth homily thus gives us a reason for these exhortations; “the passion of our Lord,” says he, “is the fountain of that happiness by which we live and are; with a joyous heart, then, as if crowned, let us carry about with us the Cross of Christ. ”

“ The sign of our salvation having come to fill so large a place in Christian art, it would naturally be expected that in memorials in any way connected with religious feelings it would be employed, and above all in the monuments of the dead laid to rest in hope of a joyous resurrection through the victory of the Cross. As a matter of fact, our earliest Christian cross-forms are the disguised crosses of the catacombs, and in spite of every outbreak of bigotry against other uses of the symbol, it has never been entirely abandoned for such purposes. ”

“ The well-known primitive posture of prayer, namely, with outspread arms, is distinctly alleged by many early writers to be an intentional allusion to the cross, perhaps especially to the Saviour’s attitude when hanging thereon. So S. Ambrose prayed upon his death-bed; and so every Christian when at prayer represented, according to Asterius Amasenus (a writer of the close of the fourth century) , “the Passion of the Cross by his gesture.” Alluding to this constant use of the holy sign in the public offices of the Church, S. Augustine says, “If we are to be regenerated, the Cross is used ”