ROSARY PRAYER: THE SIGN OF THE CROSS by Atty. Marwil Llasos

The magnificent mosaic of the Crucifixion inside the Lourdes Basilica

Christianity is essentially the religion of the cross. Jesus commands every Christian to “take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk. 9:23).

For Catholics, each prayer starts and ends with the sign of the cross. It reminds them of what the cross means in their Christian life – it is by His cross that Jesus redeemed the world. Jesus reconciled us to God through the cross: “and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility” (Eph. 2:16).

By signing themselves with the cross, Catholics merely boast in the cross of Jesus Christ: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14, NIV).

With this simple act of piety, Catholics actually preach by deed the crucified Lord: “But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 23-24). So, too, when Catholics externally trace the sign of the cross in their body, they testify with the apostle Paul that we bear in our body the marks of the Lord Jesus (Gal. 6:17, NIV). While signing themselves with the cross, Catholics say “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” thus invoking the name of the Blessed trinity, the name revealed by Our Lord (Mt. 28:19).

Nevertheless, there are those who oppose the cross. St. Paul calls them that “they are enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil. 3:18). For indeed, “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18, NAB).

The cross is the great sign of our salvation. It was foreshadowed in the Old Testament that those who are going to be saved have the sign of the cross in their forehead: “Make thy way, the Lord said to him, all through the city, from end to end of Jerusalem; and where thou findest men that weep and wail over the foul deeds done in it, mark their brows with a cross. To the others I heard him say, yours it is to traverse the city at his heels, and smite. Never let eye of yours meet with pity; old and young, man and child, all alike destroy till none is left, save only where you see the cross marked on them. And begin first with the temple itself” (Ezek. 9:4-6, Knox Version).

It is interesting to note that Protestant translations do not mention the mark of the cross in Ezekiel 9:4 and 6. They simply state “mark the forehead,” “put a mark” or the ridiculously redundant “mark a mark.” Any reference to the cross has been omitted.

Fr. Luis Alonso Shokel, S.J., renowned Old testament scholar, exegete and professor of Old Testament Studies in the Pontifical Biblical Institute Rome, explains that “the mark, in Hebrew, is called a tau, that is the letter tau which in ancient times was written with two cruciform strokes [=]. The scribe marks the tau, the cross, on the forehead; it is a sign that means ‘faithful to the Lord,’ by virtue of which those marked are saved from destruction. It is a clear guarantee which the executioners must respect” [Celebrating the Eucharist (Makati: St. Paul’s, 1991) p. 13].