This is the movement of the Holy Family.

Welcome to our Rotary meditation.

Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Let's call to mind all those who've promised to pray for, especially the healing of Livia and Margot through the intercession of

blessed Pauline Jericho. Today September 14th we celebrate the feast of the

triumph of the Cross.

This feast celebrates three things,

the discovery of the true cross of Jesus by Queen Helena

in the year 314,

the recovery of the true cross of Jesus

after it was stolen in the year 614, and the way that we triumph by uniting our cross to that of Jesus.

Now many people think Jesus was not a real historical person and that Christianity is a myth and one of the reasons I love going to the holy land is that the historical places connect us to the reality of Jesus.

St. Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 325 to find and

restore all the places connected with the life of Jesus in God's, the most important places, the birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem.

Calvary, where Jesus was crucified and died, and the empty tomb of the resurrection were known by the local inhabitants for two reasons.

First, Christians had continuously venerated these places from the time of Jesus. And second, the Roman Emperor Hadrian,

following the Barcojoba Rebellion in 132 AD, in order to stop Christians from venerating these sites, placed a pagan temple

over each one. And without realizing it, the Emperor Hadrian perfectly preserved our most important holy sites.

When Queen Helena arrived, she ordered the pagan temples removed and underneath she found Calvary the

empty tomb of Jesus and the birthplace his birthplace in Bethlehem. Over Calvary and the tomb of the resurrection,

she built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

...