Participants in Zeale for America 250, the patriotic prayer rally CatholicVote is set to host June 13 in La Crosse, Wisconsin, will have the opportunity to venerate a relic of the True Cross, among other spiritually supportive opportunities, such as the sacrament of Confession and united prayer for the country’s renewal.
Cardinal Raymond Burke, founder of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse; Catholic conservative commentator Michael Knowles; and CatholicVote President and CEO Kelsey Reinhardt will address attendees at the event, which will take place at the La Crosse Center ballroom.
The relic, which is in the care of the shrine, will be available for veneration in the room next to where Confessions will be heard, Father Zach Edgar, the director of the Shrine’s sacred liturgy, told Zeale News in a May 13 email statement.
At the conclusion of the event, Cardinal Burke will bless the attendants with the relic, Father Edgar said.
Recalling a prayer from the Stations of the Cross, Father Edgar encouraged the faithful to approach veneration of the True Cross relic with reverence and gratitude, asking for special graces.
“Knowing Our Lord's exhortation to take up our cross daily and follow Him, we ask the Lord to bestow on each of us the strength and final perseverance we need in this life, graces that flow from His open Heart on the Cross,” Father Edgar said.
“As we venerate this precious relic, our hearts should be filled with gratitude for all the Lord has done for us, echoing the words we pray during the Stations of the Cross, that we adore and bless the Lord ‘because by Your Holy Cross, You have Redeemed the world.’”
Father Edgar told Zeale News that the relic was gifted to the shrine by the late Father Thomas J. Smith, who ministered in the Diocese of La Crosse for 58 years before his death in 2018. The relic is available for public veneration annually at the shrine on Sept. 14, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
Throughout the rest of the year, it is typically kept in the shrine’s main sacristy, where priests prepare for Mass, Father Edgar explained.
Though it is kept in this private space, pilgrims may always request to venerate the relic by asking a shrine priest, he added.
According to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, veneration of relics is a practice that goes back to the earliest days of Christianity. The shrine notes that St. Jerome, among many others, distinguished between worship and veneration, explaining that the latter is proper to relics.
“We do not worship, we do not adore … but we venerate the relics of the martyrs in order to adore Him whose martyrs they are,” St. Jerome wrote.
St. Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, found the cross on which Jesus was crucified in the fourth century. Constantine dedicated two churches, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, following the discovery of the cross, according to the Texas-based Shrine of the True Cross. The cross was taken in 614 during an invasion by the king of Persia, among many other treasures of Jerusalem. In 629, Emperor Heraclius of Constantinople went into Persia to reclaim the cross; following this endeavor it was securely restored to its proper place at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The Church of Rome celebrates this restoration on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Catholics continue to revere the cross year-round, but with particular emphasis during Lent.
“We venerate the relic of the True Cross because it was the instrument on which our Lord made His supreme sacrifice for our salvation,” the Shrine of the True Cross states. “It was soaked in His most precious Blood. And through this we recognize that the cross of Christ has become the Tree of Life.”