Invention of the Holy Cross

source: disharoon.net

Today is the Feast of the "Invention," or "finding," of the Holy Cross by St. Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine. The second nocturn of Mattins today recounts how the saint used a sick person to discern which of several candidates was indeed the True Cross of our Lord, the person being healed instantly upon touch the real one. Despite the liturgical reforms of the 1950s and 1960s, the Latin rite Catholics in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem still observe this feast, which mostly disappeared in 1960. Below is a video of last year's celebration, in which a relic of the True was carried in procession.