III.  Finally, the Cross is a sign of power.  Because Jesus upon the Cross conquered the arch enemy, redeemed mankind and merited for us all blessings and graces, there lies in the sign of the Cross a miraculous strength and efficacy.  Jesus himself has said:  “Everything that you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.”  The sign of the Cross calls for help and grace through the Blood of Christ shed upon the Cross.  Would God deny such prayer?  The sign of the Cross is a particularly powerful weapon against the malicious and cunning assaults of the devil.  Of this St. Chrysostom says:  “When in the fulness of faith you make the sign of the Cross upon your forehead no impure spirit will be able to tarry near you; for he beholds the sword that has given him the death blow.”  “Write the sign of the Cross upon thy brow,” says St. Cyril, “so that the devils when they see the sign of the king may tremble and take flight.”  St Augustine tells us that our mere remembrance of the Cross puts the devil to flight, strengthens us against his assaults, and preserves us from his snares.  The sign of the Cross provides us with a powerful weapon, wherewith we may conquer the unseen foe in every attack.

We know, too, from the testimony of Holy Writ, that the evil spirit can injure mankind not only in body and soul but also in earthly possessions.  Thus the devil, by God’s permission, slew Job’s children, deprived him of his possessions and afflicted him with painful and loathsome maladies.  Now, though Christ by His death has broken Satan’s power, yet He has not completely removed it.  For this reason the Church makes the sign of the Cross over people, blesses food and drink, dwellings, water, soil, in brief everything that Christians come in contact with.  This she does in order to withdraw all these things from the injurious influence of the evil spirit, to unite them with the divine blessing and thus make them salutary.  The grace before meals of Christians has the same purpose.  It is indeed a sad token of ignorance, of indifference, or lack of faith, when in Christian homes grace before meals is disregarded, as not infrequently happens in our days.  We know from the testimony of history that the sign of the Cross was also employed successfully against bodily evils.  When St. Benedict was handed a glass of poisoned wine, the saint made the sign of the Cross over it, and behold the glass broke in his hand, and he was saved from death.  St. Gregory of Nissa testifies that his sister during an illness desired her mother to make the sign of the Cross over her; and when it was done the illness left her.  Through the sign of the Cross Bishop Fortunatus restored the sight to a blind man; St. Lawrence cured several others similarly affected.  St. Roch cured the plague stricken, and the legend says that St. Corbinian brought the dead back to life by this same sign.  The lives of the saints are replete with examples that testify to the miraculous power of the sign of the Cross.