In Hoc Signo
In the year 2000, also a jubilee year, Pope John Paul II wrote in his own hand the Stations of the Cross that popes traditionally preside over at the Colosseum on Good Friday afternoon. I remember having the opportunity to listen to him live with great emotion. When he reached the eleventh station, “Jesus is nailed to the Cross”, the Holy Father made a reflection that touched my heart deeply. As he contemplated Christ crucified, he recalled the words of John’s Gospel: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself” (Jn 12:32) and pondered: “What is it that “draws” us to the Condemned One in agony on the Cross? Certainly the sight of such intense suffering stirs compassion. But compassion is not enough to lead us to bind our very life to the One who hangs on the Cross. How is it that, generation after generation, this appalling sight has drawn countless hosts of people who have made the Cross the hallmark of their faith? Hosts of men and women who for centuries have lived and given their lives looking to this sign?”
The feast we celebrate today, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, is a providential occasion to try to enter into the mystery of the cross, which gives us life when we contemplate it, just as the Israelites in the first reading were restored to health by looking at the seraph on the pole (Nm 21:4-9). From a liturgical and historical point of view, the celebration has deep roots. It goes back to the fourth century. Tradition holds that Saint Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, discovered the True Cross of Christ during her pilgrimage to Jerusalem around AD 326–328. To honor this discovery, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was built and dedicated in AD 335 on September 13. The following day, September 14, the cross was presented to the faithful for veneration. The feast spread from Jerusalem to the universal Church, initially in the Eastern tradition, and later adopted by Rome and the West. By the 7th century, it was celebrated widely in the Latin Church.
It was precisely Saint Helena’s son, Emperor Constantine the Great, who was the protagonist of the story that gives this article its name. According to early Christian historians, before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (outside Rome) in 312 AD Constantine, who was not yet a Christian, saw a vision in the sky of a cross accompanied by the words In hoc signo vinces (“in this sign you will conquer”). He then ordered his soldiers to adorn their shields with the Christian symbol and, against the odds, won the battle against the usurper Maxentius, gaining control of the Western Roman Empire. This event marked a turning point in history, as Constantine attributed his victory to the Christian God, leading to the Edict of Milan (313 AD) and the eventual legalization and promotion of Christianity throughout the empire.
By contemplating the Cross of Christ, we too are victorious. Not in a military battle like Constantine, but in the much more important battle against sin, despair, meaninglessness, hatred – in short, against the Enemy. On the cross we can experience that good is greater than evil, love greater than hate. That is why Our Lord predicted: “when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself” (Jn 12:32).
As St. John Paul II continued in his station reflection: “From the Cross, Christ draws us by the power of love, divine Love, which did not recoil from the total gift of self; infinite Love, which on the tree of the Cross raised up from the earth the weight of Christ’s body, to counterbalance the weight of the first sin; boundless Love, which has utterly filled every absence of love and allowed humanity to find refuge once more in the arms of the merciful Father.”
Since the first Christian generation, the Cross, that is deemed “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor 1:22), has become “to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (v. 23). Like Saint Paul, we don’t have any greater glory: “may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal 6:14) we don’t claim any greater wisdom: “for I resolved to know nothing […] except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2) and we don’t look anywhere else for reconciliation “with God, in one body, through the cross, putting that enmity to death” (Eph 2:16).
In hoc signo vinces!
Fr. Javier Nieva, DCJM
*****
Previous Letters:
September 7, 2025: My Son Carlo
August 31, 2025: Humility?
August 24, 2025: How Difficult?
August 17, 2025: Politically Incorrect
August 10, 2025: Got Faith?
August 3, 2025: Greed
July 27, 2025: Ask and You Shall Receive
July 20, 2025: The Better Part
July 13, 2025: Who is the Samaritan
July 6, 2025: Joy and Spoons
June 29, 2025: In Fire
June 22, 2025: A Beating Heart in the Tabernacle
June 15, 2025: The Mirror
June 8, 2025: Filled With the Holy Spirit
June 1, 2025: He Loved Us
May 25, 2025: Servant of Your Faith and Joy
May 18, 2025: Leo
May 11, 2025: The Deposit of Faith
May 4, 2025: Costly Mercy
April 27, 2025: Who is Peter?
April 20, 2025: I Make All Things New – Arise!
April 13, 2025: I Make All Things New – To Do My Penance
April 6, 2025: I Make All Things New – I Declared My Sin to You
March 30, 2025: I Make All Things New – I Firmly Resolve
March 23 2025: I Make All Things New – I am Sorry for Offending You
March 16, 2025: I Make All Things New – Examining Your Conscience
March 9, 2025: I Make All Things New
March 2, 2025: Pruning
February 23, 2025: The Anointed of the Lord
February 16, 2025: Be My Valentine
February 9, 2025: Wash Away My Guilt II
February 2, 2025: Wash Away My Guilt I
January 26, 2025: Catholic Education
January 19, 2025: Shall Marry You
January 12, 2025: Called by Name
January 5, 2025: Pilgrims of Hope
December 29, 2024: Priests for the Family
December 22, 2024: Messengers of Joy
December 15, 2024: Blessed Are the Poor
December 8, 2024: Love, Hope and Joy
December 1, 2024: Hope Does Not Disappoint
November 24, 2024: Are You King?
November 17, 2024: Seven Words
November 10, 2024: Tu es Petrus
November 3, 2024: Pray For Those Authority
October 27, 2024: These Are the Feasts
October 20, 2024: Someone Else
October 13, 2024: Be Prudent
October 6, 2024: Project and Dreams II
September 29, 2024: Projects and Dreams I
September 22, 2024: Pastor
September 15, 2024: Take Up Your Cross
September 8, 2024: Guardians of Shared Memory
September 1, 2024: From Their Hearts
August 25, 2024: The Cost of Discipleship
August 18, 2024: For Real?
August 11, 2024: Too Long For You
August 4, 2024: A New Manna
July 28, 2024: Bread of Life
July 21, 2024: Shepherds After My Own Heart
July 14, 2024: Woe to Me…
July 7, 2024: Come and Rest (II)
June 30, 2024: Come and Rest (I)
June 23, 2024: Storms
June 16, 2024: I Will be a Father to You
June 9, 2024: Burning Furnace of Love
June 2, 2024: In the Midst of Him
May 26, 2024: Forever I Will Sing the Goodness of the Lord
May 19, 2024: Through the Holy Spirit
May 12, 2024: The Ark of the Covenant
May 5, 2024: Source and Summit
April 28, 2024: Rejoice Always
April 21, 2024: I Believe in the resurrection of the body Part II
April 14, 2024: I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body Part 1
April 7, 2024: Rich in Mercy
March 31, 2024: Sine Dominico Non Possumus About Sunday
February 11, 2024: I Was Ill and You Cared For Me
February 4, 2024: Why Evil?
January 28, 2024: Catholic Schools Week
January 21, 2024: Attachments
January 14, 2024: The LORD Shines
January 7, 2024: Epiphany 2024
December 31, 2023: A Family of Families
December 25, 2023: New Beginnings
December 17, 2023: Christmas
December 3, 2023: Watch
November 26, 2023: Be Healed
November 19, 2023: Sealed
November 12, 2023: Religious?
