Holy Cross Day is the name given in the Book of Common Prayer to the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, which is kept on September 14th. In The Rites of Durham (1593) it is still called Holy Rood Day, after the Anglo-Saxon manner.

The feast goes back to the fourth century, when Helen, dowager Empress of Constantinople, declared that the true Cross of Christ had been found. The relic was treasured up in a silver casket in the newly consecrated Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (AD 335), and brought out for display and veneration every year on this date. See St Helen Finds the True Cross in The Copy Book.

The prayer below is the Collect for this day according to the Sarum Use, the liturgy of the English Church prior to the Reformation in the sixteenth century.

Collect

O GOD, Who wast pleased to redeem mankind with the precious Blood of Thy Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, mercifully grant that they who draw nigh to adore the life-giving Cross may be set free from the bonds of their sins. Amen.

Let Us Extol the Cross’s Praise

By Adam of St Victor

Today marks the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross on September 14/27, called Holy Cross Day in England. The feast commemorates the consecration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in AD 335, in which the true Cross of Christ was kept as a precious relic. The nun Egeria, who visited Jerusalem in about 381–384, described seeing the relic taken from its silver casket on this day and ‘exalted’, that is, lifted up for public display and veneraton. See St Helen Finds the True Cross in The Copy Book.

The accompanying hymn is by Adam of St Victor (?-1146), and makes several Biblical allusions including the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath near Tyre: see 1 Kings 17:8-24. This translation is by Charles Buchan Pearson (1807-1881), Prebendary of Sarum and Rector of Knebworth, who uses the Anglo-Saxon word Rood for the Cross.

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