Kissing a wooden cross during Veneration

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On Good Friday, we had a plain wooden cross to venerate. No corpus on it. How is that right? 🤷
 
Teelynn said:
On Good Friday, we had a plain wooden cross to venerate. No corpus on it. How is that right? 🤷
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From the Good Friday liturgy: “Behold the WOOD of the cross, on which hung the Savior of the world. Come, let us worship.” Note the past tense. I have always understood the sense of the liturgy as being a virtual point in time after Jesus’ burial, when we mourn, and reverence the Cross on which he had hung.
 
How is it wrong?

The only references I see (e.g., Paschalis Sollemnitatis) are to venerating the “cross,” not to venerating a “crucifix.” Do you have documents saying crucifix or specifying there be a corpus?
 
The cross, with or without a corpus, is a Catholic Christian symbol.

There is a cross without a corpus on the roof of every Catholic Church in the world.

-Tim-
 
Because my husband was ill, I was unable to attend Good Friday Services. But when I did go, they used a large wooden cross, bare of the corpus. However, on EWTN I was surprised to see they venerated a Crucifix, and it appeared that the corpus wasn’t attached securely.
 
Kissing a wooden cross during Venerations the only way

I’m curious what you do if you are at a Good Friday liturgy and they have a plain cross. Do you simply sit out the veneration?
 
We all bear the Cross of Christ when we are Christians…The cross symbolically and spiritually marks us for Christ because our sins are forgiven through the death of Jesus who took them upon Himself by the cross of Christ…We receive ashes in the shape of a cross on our forehead on Ask Wednesday to symbolize that in our human state we are dust and to dust we shall return… Then we make the sign of the cross In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and in doing so we pray in remembrance of Him by His cross and resurrection we have been set free! … For if there were no death there would be no life and so It is through our death that we are given new life so we embrace it…

On Good Friday we talk about the death of Christ and we venerate the cross by approaching it and kissing to it, touching it,kneeling next to it just as Our Mother Mary and the others who witnessed Jesus death did and it blesses us… Yes a cross alone is just wood, but it is a witness to the death of Jesus and our sins and what God has done for us so it is made holy in that sense…Just as we are made holy by It in that spiritual sense… We must come to the cross of Christ to receive new life…
 
This isn’t difficult people.

We venerate His Holy Cross for the same reason we kiss and bow to the altar. We venerate the Cross because it is the instrument of our salvation upon which the savior of the world was sacrificed. The Cross is the altar of sacrifice. Besides, Jesus was in the tomb. He wasn’t there!

People who say, “The crucifix is the only way for me” are just being silly, or dramatic, or trying to prove to the world how Catholic they are.

-Tim-
 
It is okay to venerate either a cross or a crucifix. I’ve seen it done both ways.

At the Vatican, they usually venerate a nice sturdy processional crucifix that’s quite large, and couldn’t possibly be knocked over. (And indeed, it would be difficult to process with!) Parishes in Europe or South America or Asia that have more old-fashioned liturgical or outside processional goodies tend to use them. These are more a sign of the Crucifixion.

Most US parishes can’t afford, or haven’t chosen to afford, a huge crucifix that’s pulled out once a year, so we usually use big chunky wooden crosses. These are more a sign of the historical roots of the Veneration of the Cross.

Why?

The original Veneration of the Cross took place in Jerusalem every year back in Byzantine times, using the True Cross.

(And security used to be pretty loose. But then once there was an incident where one guy managed to bite out a big chunk of splinter and take it home and sell it, and after that they started watching people’s kisses more closely.)

(And yes, there have always been people who did bad things in church.)
 
Why must we always beat ourselves and each other up over personal likes and preferences, and the form over function of our love for Christ?🤷

Peace and all good!
 
The directions for the Mass I was at Good Friday said that a cross was to be brought out and that the people would then come forward to kiss the feet of the Lord. There was apparently an identity between cross and crucifix, and crucifix was what was intended. Details sometimes make a difference. I don’t know if this is one of them or not. I’m perplexed that at some Catholic parishes there wouldn’t be a crucifix to use around somewhere , but there would be a plain cross.
 
I’ve never seen a crucifix used for veneration, and I’ve attended lots of parishes. In fact, most parishes cover the corpus of the crucifixes they do have with a purple cloth on Good Friday. One of my parishes I used to attend had three wooden crosses for veneration on Good Friday, and then they used them in a resurrection garden outside the next day.)
 
During our FSSP Good Friday Adoration of the Cross, we used a large Crucifix.
 
People were coughing at the Mass last night, so when they brought out the "crucifix,’ I knelt down & made the sign of the cross without kissing it.
 
Allegra said:
I’ve never seen a crucifix used for veneration, and I’ve attended lots of parishes. In fact, most parishes cover the corpus of the crucifixes they do have with a purple cloth on Good Friday. One of my parishes I used to attend had three wooden crosses for veneration on Good Friday, and then they used them in a resurrection garden outside the next day.)
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Always been a crucifix in my part of the world đź‘Ť
 
truetofaith said:
People were coughing at the Mass last night, so when they brought out the "crucifix,’ I knelt down & made the sign of the cross without kissing it.
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Blimey, dont you believe in the healing power of God!

Loads of people cough during mass. Wouldn’t stop me from kissing Jesus on the cross!
 
Brendan said:
Mintaka;12873098:
It is okay to venerate either a cross or a crucifix. I’ve seen it done both ways.
The rubrics indicate a crucifix
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No one requires that it be large, a common crucifix, like the commonly hung in classrooms, would certainly suffice.

And even then, with the number of closed parishes in the US, most dioceses have storage facilities for sacred items recovered from such parishes. Statuary, baptismal fonts, and yes, large crucifixes, are readily available, almost simply for asking the bishop, or a bishop from a nearby diocese

While yes, that is the historical root, as Fr Z noted

Our parish is fortunate to have access to a relic of the True Cross, the reliquary is tied with red velvet ribbon to the feet of the corpus, and that is what we venerate on Good Friday

(and also on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Sept)

Many churches have relics of the true cross. How true it is is up for debate!!
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ajecphotos said:
Brendan;12874204:
Mintaka;12873098:
It is okay to venerate either a cross or a crucifix. I’ve seen it done both ways.

Many churches have relics of the true cross. How true it is is up for debate!!
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Can’t imagine why one would want to start that debate aye this time.

Fwiw, I do not recall ever using a crucifix for Good Friday veneration.
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