The Age of Cross
Saint Yared has named the time from Mesekerem 17 up to 25 as “The Age of Cross.” Cross is the sign of love made by the true Lord, God for His mercy and reconciliation between the Holy Father and mankind. The cross has stood up for the hope and salvation of soul for humans.
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ carried the cross and sacrificed until death for the release of our soul. He not only saved us but healed many leprosies, aliments, hunchback, paralytic, blinds, deaf and so on. Unfortunate though the cross got buried for 300 years within compost, by the devious enviousness of Jews. Later on, it was found by Queen Helena. The Coptic Synaxarium narrates it as follows.
The revelation of the cross was by the lover of God, Queen Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, from under the pile of Golgotha, after she ordered its removal. As to the reason for how this great pile of dirt came into being, it was thus: the Jewish leaders when they saw all the signs and wonders which were made manifest from the sepulchre of the Savior, such as raising the dead and healing the sick, became angry, and they sent forth throughout Judea and Jerusalem ordering all the people to cast the sweepings of their houses and the dirt over the sepulchre of Jesus of Nazareth. They continued to do so for 300 years, until it became a very great heap.
When Saint Helena came to Jerusalem, and asked the Jews about the whereabouts of the Cross, they did not inform her. Finally, some of them told her about an old Jew called Kyriakos who knew the place. She called him, and he denied it at first, but when she urged him, he told her about that pile. She ordered its removal and the Holy Cross was found. She built a church for it, consecrated it and celebrated for the Honorable Cross on the seventeenth day of the month of Meskerem. Christians make pilgrimages to that place every year as they do on the feast of the Resurrection.
Happy Holiday!
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