The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, also known as the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross, commemorates three historical events: the discovery of the True Cross in 326 AD, its initial exaltation for public veneration in 335 AD, and the recovery of the Cross from the Persians in 628 AD. Nowadays, this feast also celebrates the boundless impact of Christ’s Cross upon all of creation.
Early in the fourth century, St Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, went to Jerusalem in search of the holy places of Christ’s life. She razed the second-century Temple of Aphrodite, which tradition held was built over the Savior’s tomb, and her son built the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher on that spot. During the excavation, workers found three crosses. Legend has it that the one on which Jesus died was identified when its touch healed a dying woman. The cross immediately became an object of veneration.
To this day, the Eastern Churches, Catholic and Orthodox alike, celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on the September anniversary of the basilica’s dedication. The feast entered the Western calendar in the seventh century after Emperor Heraclius recovered the cross from the Persians, who had carried it off in 614 AD, 15 years earlier. According to the story, the emperor intended to carry the cross back into Jerusalem himself, but was unable to move forward until he took off his imperial garb and became a barefoot pilgrim.
“Residents of Govapuri may have revered the Cross since 52 CE, since St Thomas, the apostle of Jesus Christ, arrived in Goa in 52 CE before leaving for his mission to Kerala and Tamil Nadu in South India,” says historian Fr Cosme Jose Costa. While common belief is that Christianity came to Goa with the arrival of the Portuguese in 1510, the discovery of a cross on the banks of the River Zuari at Agassaim, dating back to the 6th century was an archaeological testimony to the existence of pre-Portuguese Christianity in Goa. The cross had equal arms and had an inscription in Pahlavi, a language used by Persian traders. It was discovered by Fr Costa in 2001 and is now kept in the museum at the Pilar Seminary. Latin Christianity introduced to Goa in the 16th Century further spread the devotion to the cross among the neo-converts. In fact, when the Portuguese sailed to India, their ships bore the ‘Portuguese Cross’ on them. The Portuguese Cross of the Order of Christ is a symbol of Portugal that originated with the Portuguese Order of Christ, a Catholic order founded in 1319.
The cross is a variation of the cross pattée or the cross potent. It became associated with the Portuguese Empire and its discoveries during the time of Prince Henry the Navigator. The Cross of the Order of Christ was a military order that helped fund Portuguese voyages of discovery, including those that sailed to Goa. Other symbols associated with voyages included an armillary globe and an orb surmounted with a cross. The armillary globe was a navigational instrument and the personal emblem of Dom Manuel I of Portugal. The orb surmounted with a cross signified the world and showed Christ's rule over it.
Devotion to the cross in Goa spread so much that the sign of the cross became an integral part of the day-to-day etiquettes of its people. It was customary for any Catholic to mark the sign of the cross (or three crosses?) onto their mouth when they yawned. “My great grandmother had taught me to follow this practice as a kid, and I still follow the same. In fact, my grandchildren have now picked it up from me and they too follow the traditional norm,” says Joyce Aguiar from Colva.
Further, she mentions that if there was a fish bone stuck in the throat, the person was often given a glass of water, in which a cross was drawn using a blunt knife. While going to bed, it was customary to mark the four corners of one’s bedroom with the sign of the cross, in addition to three crosses (representing the Trinity) drawn on the pillow after the recital of one’s night prayers. Before consuming meals, lunch and dinner, one would compulsorily have to bless one’s food with three crosses drawn symbolically onto one’s plate after the family prayed the grace at their oratory. In case of an injury, where there was severe bleeding, a cross made of cotton thread was placed onto the wound with a belief that the excessive bleeding would stop.
Purificação Aguiar, from Margão says, “Every year when we prepare sweets during the Christmas season, a cross is first made using the flour kneaded for the sweets and is fried before any prepared sweet is tossed into the hot oil.” When leaving home, the young would seek blessings from the elderly by joining hands as they stood in front of them so as to ensure their safe journey as they went out and returned home. The elderly would also mark the sign of the cross, widely stretching out their right arm as the person proceeded and took to his/her journey, either by foot or by a vehicle.
According to tradition, after the foundation stone has been blessed by a priest, the person laying the foundation for a new home places a small gold cross beneath it. This custom would have been the Christianized equivalent of Hindu households placing a gold image of Goddess Laxmi beneath the foundation stone.
Post Easter, there was a unique tradition observed throughout the globe. Houses and homes were blessed by a priest who came from the church to the homes of their respective parishes. The priest on his visit would carry an empty cross which was handed over to a male child of the family who was asked to stand at their family oratory as the priest chanted his prayers. Several families had their own crosses mounted onto a wooden staff, meant to be used during their annual house blessing after Easter. Unfortunately, in today’s time, probably due to ignorance or convenience, most of the priests carry a regular crucifix instead of an empty cross. Yet another occasion where we see the use of the cross as a symbol is on Ash Wednesday.
Ashes are ceremonially placed on the heads of Christians on Ash Wednesday, by being marked on their foreheads as a visible cross. During weddings, a cross made of coconut palm leaves was installed in the temporary outdoor kitchen (rossoi/reshi) built so as to prepare meals for big crowds during the occasion.
One may often see crosses built along the roadside or in private properties. These were built in thanksgiving or in memory of the deceased, as community gathering spaces or sometimes as memorials of earlier existing structures in a particular area. Cemetries in the state were at one time flooded with black wooden crosses, bearing information of the dead, pierced into the ground at the graves, in the direction of the head of the buried. Post Vatican II, the black colour was gradually replaced with brown (the natural color of wood). Today, the practice of using these wooden crosses at graves is fast disappearing in Goa, with the adoption of contemporary sticker-based tombstone labels by most Goan parishes.