II.

We heard about preparation for the Mass last Sunday. To continue on from where we left off…

All the amount of preparation we put in for mass is added to the value and merit of the Mass. A person who walks two hours to get to the Mass earns more merits than one who drives 10 minutes to the Church. People in African villages travel long on foot to get to the Mass and they like to spend two-three hours at mass, singing and dancing and listening to long homilies. If you do not prepare for the mass, even 50-55 minutes that we spend here will feel like long hours for us.

As we enter the church, we need to pause and notice the altar, appreciate the flowers. Then we make the sign of the cross.

As we reach for our forehead and then to our breast and finally to our shoulders, we are collecting ourselves, so that our minds and hearts and souls and wills focus on God. Making this holy sign, we remember Jesus with arms outstretched, suffering for us at Golgotha. We recall how He died for our salvation and how He rose, offering us life eternal. The Trinity is honored in this prayer as we touch our forehead (the Father), our breast (the Son), and our shoulders (the Holy Spirit). St. John Vianney said a genuinely made Sign of the Cross “makes all hell tremble.” Today those in the Roman Catholic Church make the Sign of the Cross with the right hand, all the fingers pointing up, in recognition of Christ’s five wounds on the Cross. It is made by touching our forehead, our breast, and our shoulders, left to right. This method was not always the standard. (I was told in the Catechism class….)

Among the earliest Christians, the Sign of the Cross was generally made on the forehead using only one finger, normally the thumb, similar to the small crosses we make today on our forehead, lips, and breast before the Gospel is read. For the first followers of the crucified Christ, this sign on the head indicated that an individual recognized Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross and that the person making it was a baptized Christian. Then, as now, Christians believed the Sign protected them from all evil, the devil, and his temptations.

The use of one finger continued until the fifth century, when a heretical group known as the Monophysites claimed that Christ possessed only one nature — that He was divine but did not have a separate human nature. Other Christians, in order to reject the Monophysites and affirm belief in the dual nature of Christ, fully divine and fully human, began to make the Sign of the Cross using two fingers, either the thumb and forefinger or the forefinger and the middle finger. To emphasize their conviction, they made a much larger Sign than previously, and did so with a prominent motion that involved their forehead, breast, and eventually the shoulders right to left.

Over the next few centuries and especially in the Eastern Church, emphasis was given to recognizing the Holy Trinity as well as the dual nature of Christ, and the use of three fingers was introduced. Recognition of the Trinity likely prompted the words, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” or something similar.

For more than 1,200 years most Catholics made the Sign of the Cross in a like manner — that is, people in the Eastern and Western Church touched their forehead, their breast, and their shoulders, going right to left, with three fingers. Before he became pope, Innocent III wrote in The Sacred Mystery of the Altar, “The Sign of the Cross is made with three fingers, because it is imprinted under invocation of the Trinity… so that it descends from the upper part to the lower, and crosses over from the right hand to the left because Christ came down from the heaven to the Earth and crossed over from the Jews to the Gentiles.”

Other rationales for touching the right shoulder first is that “Jesus sits on the right hand of the Father” and that the right represents light and goodness, while the left represents darkness.

By the end of the Middle Ages, however, Western Catholics were making the Sign of the Cross using the hand in place of the fingers and touching the left shoulder first. Among the sources documenting this method and the rationale is a 15th-century devotion used by the nuns of the Brigittine Monastery of Sion in Isleworth, England, which stated that one should begin with the head and move downward, then to the left side, and then to the right. The devotion supported this form, saying that Jesus came down from the Father (forehead), was born as man (breast), suffered on the Cross (left shoulder), and ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father (right shoulder). This method became the standard in the Western Church. It is not clear why the changes took place or why they did not also take root in the Eastern Church, which continues using three fingers to make the Sign of the Cross and from right to left.

The Sign of the Cross reflects on the mystery of our redemption. This simple yet pious act summarizes much of what Catholics believe.

Q: Why is it a mark of discipleship?

The sign means a lot of things. The sign of the cross is: a confession of faith; a renewal of baptism; a mark of discipleship; an acceptance of suffering; a defense against the devil; and a victory over self-indulgence.

When you make the sign, you are professing a mini version of the creed — you are professing your belief in the Father, and in the Son and in the Holy Spirit. When you say the words and pray in someone's name you are declaring their presence and coming into their presence — that's how a name is used in Scripture.

As a sacramental, it's a renewal of the sacrament of baptism; when you make it you say again, in effect, "I died with Christ and rose to new life."
The sign of the cross is a mark of discipleship. Jesus says in Luke 9:23, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." The word that the Fathers of the Church used for the sign of the cross is a Greek word that is the same as what a slave owner put on a slave, a shepherd put on a sheep and a general put on a soldier — it's a declaration that I belong to Christ.

By doing the sign of the cross, you're saying to the Lord, "I want to obey you; I belong to you. You direct all my decisions. I will always be obedient to God's law, Christ's teachings and the Church."

When suffering comes, the sign of the cross is a sign of acceptance. The sign of the cross says, "I am willing to embrace suffering to share in Christ's suffering."

When you're suffering, when you're feeling like God is not there, the sign of the cross brings him there and declares his presence whether you feel it or not. It is a way of acknowledging him at that time of trial.

One of the main teachings of the early Church Fathers is that the sign of the cross is a declaration of defense against the devil. When you sign yourself, you are declaring to the devil, "Hands off. I belong to Christ; he is my protection." It's both an offensive and defensive tool.