Sister Rose Movies
“The True Cross” airs this Sunday in “Finding Jesus: Faith, Fact, Forgery”
The latest episode in CNN’s “Finding Jesus: Faith, Fact, Forgery” is a fairly interesting examination of purported relics of the True Cross that St. Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, is said to have brought back from her two-year visit to Jerusalem in 328 CE.
According to the show, the Empress Helena, who was a Christian, set out to Jerusalem to find the true cross of Jesus, becoming the first Christian archeologist, after a couple of scandals perpetrated by her son.
She excavated the site of Jesus’ execution and tradition has it that she personally discovered the most sacred symbol of Christianity, the True Cross on which Jesus was crucified. She also broke it up into many pieces that are said to have made their way across the globe, mostly throughout Europe.
Many, many cathedrals and churches claim to have relics of the True Cross but few are willing to let them be carbon dated because the sample would be destroyed. One scientist, as shown in the program, mapped the location of all of these supposed relics of the True Cross and the years the relics were placed in these churches. Using this as a guide, he and another scientist approached the Archbishop in Waterford, Ireland, because the archdiocese had a relic of the True Cross that had been given by the Pope to the King of Ireland in 1100 CE.
They received permission from the Archbishop to carbon date the relic.
I won’t give away the ending, but let’s just say there’s more testing to be done. This is just the beginning.
I hope these scientists will get permission to test another relic that St. Helena is supposed to have brought back from Jerusalem as well. These relics make up the Scala Santa (Holy Stairway) in Rome and I have a personal experience tied to this site.
In 1981 a group of sisters from my community went on pilgrimage to Rome and Italy. On a very hot and humid day near the end of August we went by bus from our Generate to the Santa Scala across from the Lateran Basilica. It consists of 28 steps encased in wood and marble are said to have been the steps of the Pretorium that Jesus climbed to encounter Pontius Pilate. At any rate, the devout are supposed to climb the steps on their knees. Each step has a small opening covered by a worn piece of heavy glass or plastic that you can try to look through, or touch. Pilgrims believe they can be closer to the actual footsteps of Jesus, closer to Jesus.
It was so hot and humid, and we did climb them on our knees. Appropriately I suppose, it was agony. I stayed back with a sister who had a hard time moving from step to step, made even harder because the Italian ladies ahead of us paused on each step to pray and it seemed to take them forever. At the top of the stairs, the older nun who was our guide kept urging us to hurry – she had walked up the circular walkway to the top that we would all use to walk down. Let’s just say we were thrilled to be back on the bus.
Are these holy steps real? Who knows? Does it matter? All I can say is that if I go back, I’m using the walkway.
Why are relics of the True Cross so important to us? Because the cross is the symbol of our salvation. According to one expert on the program, St. Helena “gave Christianity a symbol that made the Christian religion what it is.”
The next episode of this series airs on Easter Sunday: Mary Magdalene. I am not going to repost but I will just say that this episode reveals the confusion equating Mary Magdalene with the woman caught in adultery – it dates from a mistake a pope made in a sermon in the 6th century. The program also responds to all of the assertions made about Mary Magdalene over the years, with Fr. James Martin, SJ especially adding the Catholic Christian perspective. Very interesting.
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