Today the Church celebrates The Exaltation of the Holy Cross and our family celebrates our son, Simon's, feast day. We named Simon after the man from Cyrene who helped to carry the cross with Christ. We are all called to pick up our cross, daily, and carry it with love, but can you imagine what it must have been like to actually walk the path of Calvary and behold the eyes of Jesus as he offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice. While Simon of Cyrene does not have a special feast day in the Church, we thought he would be OK celebrating him as our son's patron on this day.
What a glorious triumph the cross is! And what a beautiful feast found in ordinary time that asks us to pause and reflect on the passion, death and resurrection of Our Lord. As we all know, the story of our Redeemer did not end with the cross- rather the cross points us to the glory of the resurrection.
The cross, which disappeared after the Crucifiction, was believed to have been discovered by Helena, around 355. Tradition says that basil grew all over the hillside where Helena discovered the cross. And so you ask what to serve to celebrate this feast? A Continual Feast has a delicious recipe for pesto!
It makes a great side dish paired with orzo pasta.And what would a namesake feast day be without a special dessert? We decided to fill the crumb crust recipe found on page 267 with a custard pie in order to make a cross tart!
A picture will come just as soon as I take it out of the oven!
what a lovely thought and act to celebrate your son's feastday or nameday on Sept. 14. You are correct that the Catholic Church does not have a feastday for Simon of Cyrene, a pity that. However, some traditions do celebrate his feastday on rither May 12th or September 19th. But not the good ole RC CHurch. Aaron Peters, O.S.B.
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