I. The sign of the Cross is, first of all, a mark of honor.  It reminds us of the holy Trinity and of our relation to the triune God.  The Father has created us, the Son redeemed us, and the Holy Ghost has sanctified us.  God the Father created us after His own image, and therefore we bear a resemblance to God in our souls.  Our soul is a spirit, as God is a spirit.  It has understanding and free will; it can be holy; it can become perfect, since our heavenly Father is perfect.  Our soul is immortal, as God is immortal, and it is destined to partake in heaven of divine glory and happiness.  Is there not in this resemblance and likeness to God an unspeakably high dignity and glory for man?  We are reminded of this by the sign of the Cross.  The Son of God redeemed us through the Cross.  After sin had reduced the human race to a state of ignominious bondage the Son of God, moved by infinite love, became incarnate for us, in order to make satisfaction for our sins and to remove from us their awful consequences.  From slaves of sin and of the devil, He has made us just and children of God.  Having been redeemed, we now call God our Father; and Jesus, the Son of the eternal Father, calls us His brethren.  Of all this we are reminded by the Cross, for we were redeemed through the Cross, and became children of God and heirs of heaven.  Thus the Cross is the glorious sign of our redemption.  The Holy Ghost sanctifies us by dwelling in us and making of us His temples.  What an honor for us!  The sign of the Cross reminds us of this honor.

In truth is therefore this sign a mark of the highest honor, and the Christian’s greatest glory.  In this sense the Apostle wrote to the Galatians:  “But God forbid that I should glory, but in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. vi, 14).  This means, according to Saint Chrysostom:  “I glory only in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, namely, in the faith, in grateful remembrance and contemplation of the benefactions of the Cross, through which we were redeemed and have received the grace to lead a devout:  life and to strive for eternal happiness.  In the Cross we recognize thoroughly the enormity of our guilt and the boundless love of God.”

With what love and devotion should we, then, make the sign of the Cross!  As often as we sign ourselves with the Cross we profess our belief in the holy Trinity, and in the merciful and blessed work of the redemption, and express our gratitude to the holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  It is hard to believe that there are Christians who are ashamed to make the sign of the Cross; and yet:  there are many such nowadays.  Some act so from motives of cowardly human respect; others because their faith is dead.  But to be ashamed of the Cross means a denial of our faith.  At all times the sign of the Cross has served as a public and solemn profession of the Christian faith.  Thus did in the days of persecution the faithful profess their belief in Christ, and seal their profession