When Is the Feast of the Holy Cross?

You look up “Feast of the Holy Cross” on the calendar and find that it can be celebrated twice a year. On September 14, the whole Church keeps a solemn universal feast. On May 3, by contrast, a feast survives that officially ceased to exist more than half a century ago, yet many of the faithful in Spain and the Americas keep celebrating it every year.

Why are there two dates for the same thing? And why was one of them suppressed without ever disappearing completely? This article explains the origin of each, what sets them apart, and what remains today of the date that the Roman calendar itself declared closed in 1960.

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What Are the Dates of the Feast of the Holy Cross?

Over the course of its history, the Catholic liturgical calendar developed two distinct feasts centered on the mystery of the Cross:

The first is the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, celebrated every September 14. It has the rank of a Feast of the Lord, red vestments are worn, and it remains in force today in the Church’s universal calendar. It commemorates two overlapping events: the solemn consecration, in AD 335, of the Constantinian basilicas of the Martyrium and the Anastasis, built over Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre; and, three centuries later, the return of the wood of the True Cross, recovered from Persian hands by Emperor Heraclius in AD 629.

The second is the Finding of the Holy Cross, traditionally called the Invention of the Holy Cross, set on May 3. Unlike the first, it no longer appears in the General Calendar: it was a traditional commemoration proper to the Hispano-Gallican liturgy, celebrating the actual discovery (inventio, in Latin) of the crosses by St. Helena in Jerusalem. This date was suppressed from the Roman calendar by Pope St. John XXIII in 1960 and merged into the September feast by Pope St. Paul VI in 1969. Despite that official suppression, the Finding of the Holy Cross endures to this day by liturgical indult in many dioceses and confraternities in Spain and Latin America.

What Is Celebrated on September 14? The History of the Exaltation

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross commemorates a very specific event: the solemn consecration, in AD 335, of two basilicas built by order of Constantine on Calvary itself: the Martyrium, erected on the site of the crucifixion, and the Anastasis, over the empty Sepulchre. From the fourth century on, that double consecration became the starting point of the feast.

Nearly three centuries later, that same date took on a second meaning. In 614, the Persian king Khosrow II invaded the Holy Land, plundered the basilica of the Martyrium, and carried off the relic of the True Cross as a war trophy to his capital, Ctesiphon. Fifteen years later, in 629, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius defeated the Persian forces and returned the wood to Jerusalem in a triumphal procession.

That is why, when the Church celebrates the Exaltation every September 14, she commemorates two victories: that of the church raised on the very site of the Lord’s death and glorious resurrection, and that of a relic that was recovered.

What Was Celebrated on May 3? The Former Finding of the Holy Cross

While the Exaltation looks to the seventh-century return of the relic, the Finding looks to its origin: the discovery of the wood itself by St. Helena in Jerusalem, around the year 326.

This feast developed in a particular way in the Hispanic and Gallican liturgies, distinct from the Roman one. For centuries, it was in those regions that May 3 was most deeply rooted liturgically, while the East and Rome focused their devotion on September.

This doubling of dates for a single mystery did not survive the liturgical reform of the twentieth century. In 1960, Pope St. John XXIII simplified the General Roman Calendar and removed the Finding as a feast of its own. Nine years later, in 1969, Pope St. Paul VI definitively incorporated all the theological content of that former date into the September feast, uniting in a single day what had once been divided between two.

The date endures to this day, by a legitimate liturgical indult, in many dioceses and confraternities in Spain and Latin America, where popular devotion proved stronger than the reform of the calendar.

What Are the Cruces de Mayo?

The Cruces de Mayo (May Crosses) is the popular festival that every May 3 gathers entire communities in Spain and Latin America around a single gesture: adorning a wooden cross with flowers, in memory of the former date of the Finding of the Holy Cross.

Its roots lie in the Confraternities of the True Cross, penitential brotherhoods that arose between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries under the patronage of Franciscan friaries, with a strong presence in Salamanca, Seville, Baeza, Zamora, Mexico City, Lima, and Popayán. Their members scourged their backs on the nights of Holy Week as they escorted in procession an image of the Crucified Christ or a reliquary of the Lignum Crucis. Every year on May 3, that devotion culminated in a festival.

Today that tradition is still alive in Córdoba, Granada, and Caravaca de la Cruz, in Spain, and in the traditional “Velorios de Cruz de Mayo” (May Cross vigils) of Venezuela, Colombia, and Guatemala. Communities cover monumental crosses with fragrant flowers, ears of wheat, embroidery, and seasonal fruit.

The dry, shameful wood of the gallows, bathed in the blood of Christ, blossoms like a tree that conquers death, in the very springtime that yields its first fruits.

Prayers for the Feast of the Holy Cross

Hymn for Morning Prayer (Lauds): Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Let the Cross of the Word shine forth in light,
shine like the most sacred flesh
of Jesus, born of the Virgin,
who lives and shines in the Father’s glory.

Adam groaned in grief and anguish,
Eve beside him shed her tears;
let their faces shine through the glorious Cross,
the Cross set ablaze as the Word breathes His last.

Hail, Cross of the mountains and the roads,
gentle medicine beside the sick,
royal throne of Christ in our homes,
Cross of our faith, hail, blessed Cross!

May the crucified Lord reign,
lifting high the Cross on which He died;
our ailing eyes are seeking light,
our lips the river of life.

We adore you, O Cross, which we sinners
fashioned with God-slaying hands;
we adore you, adornment of the Lord,
sacrament of our eternal joy. Amen.

Short Prayer

Lord our God, who willed to save the human race through your Son, who died on the Cross, grant, we pray, that we, who have known on earth the mysterious power of the Cross of Christ, may attain in heaven the fruits of his redemption. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen

Why Does the Church Celebrate the Feast of the Holy Cross?

Behind the two dates and the calendar lies a deeper question: why solemnly celebrate the instrument of an execution? For the ancient world, the cross was the most atrocious disgrace there was; for Jewish law, a curse (Dt 21:23). The Church celebrates the Cross because in Christ that logic was completely overturned: the gallows of shame became a throne of glory.

Five reasons underpin this celebration, and all five reappear, developed in depth, in our article on the Exaltation of the Cross:

It is the trophy of victory over death: “God reigned from the tree,” sings the Vexilla Regis. It is the supreme revelation of God’s love, through the love with which Christ gave himself up for us (CCC 616). From his pierced side the Church and the sacraments were born: blood and water, symbols of Baptism and the Eucharist (Jn 19:34). It has a twofold liturgical character: penitential on Good Friday, glorious on September 14. And it has a meaning for every Christian: it gives new meaning to human suffering and calls us to discipleship (Lk 9:23).

If you would like to explore each of these five reasons with its full biblical and magisterial foundation, keep reading in our article on the Exaltation of the Cross.

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