Holy Cross Day – 14 September 2023

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you,
because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Collect
Almighty God,
who in the passion of your blessed Son
made an instrument of painful death
to be for us the means of life and peace:
grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ
that we may gladly suffer for his sake;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen

Tradition speaks of how Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, while on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, discovered, on 14 September c 326 CE, what was then believed to be the empty tomb and true cross of Christ. In 335 CE the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built on this site. From about the seventh century the commemoration has been observed.

Lift high the Cross,
The love of Christ proclaim,
Till all the world
Adore his sacred Name