When I was about the age of my oldest daughter, I visited Jerusalem. Unlike her, I knew very little about Jesus then; yet, when I stepped into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I had a sense that the place was special – though I didn’t know to use the word “sacred” to describe my feeling. Holy Sepulchre’s dedication date gave us the feast we observe on Sept 14. The feast is called Holy Cross because as part of preparing the site to construct the church, the builders found a few pieces of wood, taken to be the fragments of Jesus’ cross. Some 1670 years before my visit (c. 326 AD), Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine I, stood in that very spot. She, too, must have felt its pull, as she commissioned the building of the church based on her intuition, not having seen the wood pieces yet that would link this site to that of the crucifixion. (At the time, it was occupied by Hadrian’s temple of Venus, as clearly, he built projects other than the wall that divided Britain in 122!)  

To me, St Helena of Constantinople (aka of the Cross) is the most inspirational woman in early Christianity. Strong and dedicated, she knew great love and much loss, and must have possessed a fair measure of wisdom – the theme that I introduced in my address last week, and we still see threaded through our readings this week and next. Her long life (c. 248 – 338) has given rise to many legends, particularly in Britain, where countless wells and churches are dedicated to her as the daughter of an early Welsh king, even linking her to Arthurian mythology. While the British myths have no historical basis, we know a few details of Helena’s real life in Asia Minor. 

At the turn of the 3rd and 4th centuries, the Roman Empire was ruled by the so-called Tetrarchy. First, Diocletian split the Empire between the East and West, giving Maximius the rule over the Western side. Then, each of them selected Galerius and Constantius, respectively, as their junior emperors. Nobody knows how and where Helen, a lowly stable-maid in her 20s, met Constantius, and it’s unclear how formal their marriage was. But, the two were said to be soulmates, and had Constantine c. 272. Helen’s first heartbreak came when Constantine went away as an adolescent, to live as a hostage in the Eastern imperial court to ensure Constantius’ loyalty. Then, she lost Constantius himself, as he put her aside to marry a daughter of Maximian, his superior in the West. At least she was then reunited with Constantine, by then an adult and father of Crispus. Helen became quite close to both of them, and compensated for missing out on part of Constantine’s childhood by witnessing that of her grandson. (His mother’s fate mirrored Helena’s divorce, as Constantine experienced the same political pressures that his father did.) Constantius died a couple of decades later after a battle with the Picts in Northern Britain, where his army immediately proclaimed Constantine as his successor. Still, it took a few decades, many complicated civil wars, as well as the Edict of Milan that legalized Christianity in 313, to ensure his undivided reign by 324. Meanwhile, he gave Helena the title of Empress Augusta, social standing above any she had prior, and access to his treasury. But another tragedy struck: her beloved Crispus was accused of treason and executed. In revenge, Helena convinced Constantine to execute Fausta, his second wife, as the one who had falsely implicated Crispus. These sad circumstances provided the backdrop to Helena’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land – in her late 70s! — where she thought she found the site of Golgotha, commissioned the Church of Holy Sepulchre among many others, and thereby found the presumed relics of the True Cross. 

What a life; what a story… We, too, bear the crosses of our own grief and shame. As we do, we look for ways to adapt and move on, yet hold on to a few core beliefs to keep us afloat. Our church buildings embody the permanence of beliefs that ground us and help us weather such “changes and chances of this fleeting world” (BCP, collect for Compline). At Holy Sepulchre, there is a large rock platform, called the Stone of Unction, supposed to be the place of Jesus’ anointing for burial. The stone flows with fragrant oil, which some people believe to be that original oil, since then inexhaustible. It is also there that the “uncreated” flames appear annually on Easter morning. Even I, a child raised in a secular culture, felt the impulse to rush and dip my baseball hat into this holy oil! Now, there’s also a small wooden ladder, stuck outside one of the church’s windows – still there following the 18^th century repairs because the 7 Christian traditions overseeing the church cannot agree to remove it!

Neither the stone or ladder have moved for a long time. One represents the power of tradition to sustain hope, and the other – division and conservatism that stands in the way of healing. Which describes our own church? Clearly, we are adapting in many ways, or we’d be “stuck” just like that ladder, forgotten and out of place in today’s world. However, we do maintain some enduring spiritual practices, disciplines, and principles that, according to our belief, have the power to heal us. These might vary from person to person, and from one religious tradition to another. However, the desire to touch the Divine, dip into the presence of the Spirit, is universal. Its outward manifestations – practices and traditions, conservatism and mysticism – may all be “foolishness” in the eyes of the world, as St Paul said.

Perhaps, one of the “crosses” we carry today is our struggle to put into the right words and share with others our intuitive knowledge of the Sacred – that feeling I had as a child in Jerusalem. Many sensed it before and after me, on the holy hill and in many other places in the world, including one elderly, grief-stricken woman who was able to rise above her troubles and mistakes, and helped shape the Christian faith for generations to come. May Saint Helena of Constantinople, the patron saint of converts as well as archeologists, difficult marriages, and divorced couples, inspire us to bear our losses with dignity, reach out to touch the divine, and share our beliefs with others in a way that is gracious, yet confident. Amen.

Question to Consider

In the words of the closing prayer on Holy Cross Day, God “transformed an instrument of shame into a sign of hope and glory.”  Under Constantine’s rule, the cross that had been the preferred instrument of pain in the Roman world became the symbol of victory. Empress Helena discovered the shards of its wood, and built
upon them not only the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but a new purpose for the remaining decade of her life.

What is your own personal cross? How has it defined you? How is God transforming you, as you go through this experience?