I’m a bit late on this one, but a blessed feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, also called the Triumph of the Cross and, at times, the ‘Invention’ of the Cross, in the original sense of that term, that this feast commemorates the ‘finding’ of the true Cross of Christ by Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine, in 326, a decade or so after the great Emperor’s victory over paganism, and his legalization of Christianity in the Roman Empire. One third of the Cross was left in the Holy Land, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre built over the site; one third was brought to Rome, and one third traversed to Constantinople, to make the city impregnable (which it did, more or less, until the last day of May of 1453, and the onslaught of the Ottomans).

This feast also commemorates the recovery of the Cross by the Emperor Heraclius in 629, against apparently insuperable odds, after the vast Persian army carried the precious relic off in 614.

As valuable as it is, the earthly relic of the Cross is the not, of course, the main event, but reminds us of a far deeper and lasting truth:  The timeless sacrifice of the Son of God on that wooden instrument of torture and death, which in a paradoxical way becomes the arbor vitae, the tree of life, the sign of His infinite love, the ladder to heaven, a sign transcending space and time, extending to all humans who have lived, and ever will.  The Cross is also a sign of the love we must have for each other, a love even to lay down our lives for the sake of love.

As the 8th century bishop and hymnographer Saint Andrew of Crete proclaims in today’s Office:

Rightly could I call this treasure the fairest of all fair things and the costliest, in fact as well as in name, for on it and through it and for its sake the riches of salvation that had been lost were restored to us.
  
Had there been no cross, Christ could not have been crucified. Had there been no cross, life itself could not have been nailed to the tree. And if life had not been nailed to it, there would be no streams of immortality pouring from Christ’s side, blood and water for the world’s cleansing. The legal bond of our sin would not be cancelled, we should not have attained our freedom, we should not have enjoyed the fruit of the tree of life and the gates of paradise would not stand open. Had there been no cross, death would not have been trodden underfoot, nor hell despoiled.
And as the prayer we pray sums it up:

We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee, because by Thy Holy Cross, Thou hast redeemed the world.  

Here are two musical renditions, one by the incomparable Palestrina;

And here is one by Fernando Sor (1778 – 1839) known more for his classical guitar pieces, but was also a renowned composer of sacred music:

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