The liturgies for Holy Week are filled with beautiful Catholic traditions that reach back thousands of years. Good Friday is the only day of the year when the Church does not celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Instead, the Celebration of the Passion of the Lord consists of hearing the Passion reading from the Gospel of John, solemn intercessions, adoration of the cross and Holy Communion from hosts consecrated on Holy Thursday. Here is more about the tradition of adoration – or veneration – of the holy cross.
We have St. Helena, the mother of Roman emperor Constantine the Great, to indirectly thank for this tradition. She journeyed to Jerusalem in the fourth century to find the sites associated with Christ’s passion, with the primary goal of finding the true cross. What made this task more challenging was that over the centuries, the Romans had built over the places where Jesus was tried, sentenced and crucified. Helena excavated many sites before finding three crosses. According to legend, she touched a woman who was near death with parts of each of the crosses, and one – the true cross – healed her completely. Helena split that cross, leaving part in Jerusalem and taking part to Constantinople. Later, she took several pieces to Rome, where they were enshrined in the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem.