Church of the Madalene

Falling squarely under the category of, “Why do Catholics do that?” is making the Sign of the Cross.

It’s almost as ancient as Christianity itself, it originated in the second century with Christians using just the thumb to cross ones forehead. (Sound familiar? We continue this gesture to this day just before the reading of the Gospel at Mass.) By the Fourth Century Christians were doing what I call the full-body-cross with the thumb, index and middle finger pointing upward to represent the Holy Trinity.¹

As time passed, the Latin Rite churches gradually started doing a left to right gesture to possibly mirror the gestures of the priest.² The Eastern Orthodox churches never picked up this technique, so to this day if you see someone cross themselves from right to left, they may be Eastern Orthodox.

Protestants never really picked up this practice of making the Sign of the Cross since, as even Tertullian points out, this practice is a Christian cultural tradition, and, quite frankly, they may have found it too Catholic.

So why do we do it? The Catechism of the Catholic Church states it best:

“The Christian begins his day, his prayers, and his activities with the Sign of the Cross: ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.’ The baptized person dedicates the day to the glory of God and calls on the Savior’s grace which lets him act in the Spirit as a child of the Father. The sign of the cross strengthens us in temptations and difficulties.” (CCC 2157) (The emphasis is mine.)

If you would like to invoke the Holy Trinity in Latin as you make the Sign of the Cross you would say, “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.” The Son, Filii, is pronounced like “feely” with and extra “e” sound at the end feely-ee. (And to think my family doubted that anyone would benefit from my Classical education.)

As Father Jack once told an RCIA class, “Feel free to make the sign of the cross, it’s like showing that you’re a member of the club.” Since non-Catholics can’t take communion with us during the Mass, making the sign of the cross is a nice way to encourage them to participate, to physically and to outwardly be participants in Christ’s Church.

If you would like to learn more, visit the Catholic Encyclopedia.

 

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_of_the_Cross

² Ibid