How the Holy Cross was found

I am sure Santacruzan, a popular and colorful annual procession in our parishes during the month of May is known by many of our devout parishioners. It might help to deepen our Catholic faith to retell the story.

Our religion began to be publicly recognized and faith grew with the support of the Empire when Emperor Constantine and his family became Christians in the 4th century. His mother, St. Helena, once wanted to find the cross on which Jesus died.

Tradition, or one of the traditional stories, says that she went to Jerusalem accompanied by her so-called courtesans or escorts, the blue ladies and security guards of the time. This was after Constantine ordered Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem to look for the Cross.

After diggings in several locations in Jerusalem St. Helena found in one spot three identical crosses. But which one was that of Jesus? Nobody could tell. How did St. Helena found out?

She went to ask the help of Bishop of Jerusalem who touched a sick leper with the crosses. The sick was cured by one of the 3 crosses which identified it as the true one. This miraculous cross is now kept in the basilica built by St. Helena and venerated as a Church feast on September 14. The celebration of this discovery is called Exultation or Triumph of the Holy Cross.

The Santacruzan procession during the month of May is the way Filipino parishes celebrate the feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross since the Spanish time.

Has it helped deepen the Catholic belief on the mystery of the Holy Cross? I am not too sure.