The Sign of the Cross
Christians have always made the Sign of the Cross, but not in the way they do now. In the early years, Christians traced their thumb across their foreheads, their ears, their hurting hip ― whatever they wanted. Even their food. We still see this at Mass today before the Gospel is proclaimed. “A reading from the holy Gospel according to John,” we might hear. Then we mark little crosses on our forehead, our lips, and our heart. If you listen, you might hear the priest or deacon whisper: “the Lord be in my heart and on my lips that I may worthily proclaim his holy Gospel.”
It wasn’t until the Middle Ages that Christians began making the Sign of the Cross over their whole upper body ― forehead, belly, left shoulder then right. This went hand-in-hand with the piety of the building. It was around this time that large crucifixes became popular in churches. As crosses became larger, the Sign of the Cross spread wider across the body.1
There is a reason the Sign of the Cross has been around since the beginning. There is something primordial about it. Even before we learn to talk, we can pray with the Sign of the Cross. A tiny child can seal themselves in the name of God and in the story of God’s love for us. This is why the priest greets the congregation with the Sign of the Cross. It takes us back to the first stirrings of our faith, to where our story began.
Even toddlers who cannot speak can make the Sign of the Cross. Nevertheless, when we cross ourselves, we do say something. Indeed, we call on God’s name: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” It is no small thing to call on God’s name. In the Book of Genesis, after Cain famously killed his brother Abel, Cain lived on as “a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth” (Gn 4:12). But Adam and Eve had a third son ― Seth. And we’re told that it was Seth’s descendants who “began to call upon the name of the Lord” (Gn 4:26). In fact, it was from among Seth’s descendants that Noah emerged ― the “righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah [who] walked with God” and built the ark (Gn 6:9). Later on, the patriarch Abraham was seen building altars and sanctifying the land. Wherever he did so, he always “called there on the name of the Lord” (Gn. 12:8; 13:4; 21:33). Calling upon God’s name is a theme of Judeo-Christian life and worship. It is an indispensable component of prayer.
In the biblical understanding, invoking the Lord’s name was more than just a way to call out to him. Indeed, names represented the very presence of someone. Calling upon God’s name was a way of drawing near to him, of placing oneself under his protection and presence. “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Ps 124:8).2
The earliest Christians knew the power in the Sign of the Cross and they prayed it often. The second-century theologian Tertullian said that, “in all our travels and movements, in all our coming in and going out, in putting on our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, whatever employment occupies us, we mark our foreheads with the Sign of the Cross.”3
There is power in the Sign of the Cross. It is the Christian’s first prayer. There is power in calling upon the Lord’s name. It is a way of drawing near to God. For the Christian, all of this is directed toward the Crucifixion ― this is the Sign of the Cross. The Crucifixion, of course, was the time Jesus’s body ― the body of God ― was broken like ours is inevitably broken. When we make the Sign of the Cross, we are reminded that Jesus suffered like we suffer. We cross ourselves in order to sear Jesus’s solidarity with us into our own bodies. It is no mistake that, as crosses and images of the dying Jesus got larger throughout the Middle Ages, we made larger Signs of the Cross upon our bodies. We see in the suffering Jesus our own suffering.
When we invoke God’s name and sign ourselves we are reminded of the Crucifixion ― we draw near to it. We cross ourselves because we are not alone, because we have never been alone, and by making the Sign of the Cross, we draw near to him at the place he is most near to us ― the Cross.
Guy Oury, The Mass: Spirituality, History, Practice (New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1988), 48.
Edward Sri, A Biblical Walk Through the Mass: Understanding What We Say and Do in the Liturgy (West Chester, PA: Ascension Press, 2011), 21.
Tertullian, De corona, no. 30.