The Holy Cross

The Feast of the Holy Cross commemorates the finding of the True Cross by St. Helen, the mother of the emperor Constantine.  Indeed, for a very long time the commemoration was called, the Feast of the Finding of the Cross.  In this feast the Church celebrates the overwhelming love of the Son of God for all men, to the point that he would suffer the worst kind of death, as though to say: There is nothing I will not do for you.  Throughout the ages, devotions, hymns, sermons, and works of art have been dedicated to the Holy Cross.  The Fathers of the Church often saw the Cross in references to trees in the writings of the Old Testament, especially on the Psalms.  Cassiodorus (d. 585), a high official in Italy a generation after the fall of the Roman Empire, saw Christ as the man described in Psalm 1, as many of the Fathers did, and then sees him compared to the tree in the Psalm:

" 'And he shall be as a tree planted near flowing water.'  Here is foretold is very great and singular blessedness: just as his wonderful work has been told, so his marvelous richness is related in a similitude.  I think that The Lord Christ is well compared to a fruit-bearing tree because of the Cross upon which he hung for the salvation of men.  Justly is the Cross called the Tree of Life, for The Lord Christ, who is our life, was hung on it for our salvation, and said to the thief who believed in him, 'Amen, I say to you, this day you shall be with me in paradise' (Luke 23, 43).  Then and now, all who believe in the Cross receive the gift of eternal life.  Or. As history relates, the Tree in paradise indeed was for eternal life, if there had not been the detestable disobedience.  For, if Adam had shown devotion to it, would death have entered the world?  Thus, the most holy fathers drew out of this the most sweet honey, saying: God gave a commandment that Adam might know his will, and he affixed a law so that Adam might take more care in his work.  But  he imprudently followed after the enemy, and unhappily abandoned the Author of Life.  Then, lamentably having been deceived by fate, he lost the eternal life that he would have possessed, and he incurred death, which he had not known before.  But let us return to the similitude, 'planted near flowing water': this means that God planted the wood of the Cross so that man might always grow and increase in his faith."