The Sign of the Cross

At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign.  Tertullian (160-240 ad)

I confess to being surprised to discover that the Sign of the Cross is allegedly a Roman Catholic heresy, or perhaps even worse, another Catholic superstition.  I use the word surprised because I grew up imitating my Irish grandmother for whom signing herself with the cross was a way of placing herself under the protective love of the crucified Jesus.   She accompanied that sign with a prayer that her actions that day be an acceptable sacrifice to a God.   

This was made brutally clear to me by an Anglican congregant who came to me after the Sunday Eucharist to protest my liturgical uses of the sign of the cross.  He was not just disagreeing with me but was appalled that I would dare introduce poperey into an Anglican celebration.  What was for me was a profession of faith, a spiritual reminder that our Saviour Jesus Christ died on the cross for me was for him an abomination.

What does crossing myself with the cross mean?

The action of signing myself with the mark of the cross sign is an outward sign of an inner spiritual reality.  It is a public statement of belief, hope, and fellowship with brothers and sisters in faith.  We were taught it as children  and reminded regularly how the Sign of the Cross reminded us that:  

1. We have been bought and purchased by the finished work of Christ on the cross (“sign of the cross”).

2. We have been marked with the name of the Triune God in our baptisms (all Christian baptisms are in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit).

3.    We continue to look to and trust in Christ at all times and situations.

4. We boldly and unashamedly declare to the world that we are Christ-followers, disciples of the Christ who died and rose for us.  

5. Our sign of the cross is a prayer, a traditional proclamation: Christ has died for my sins upon the cross. In Baptism, he shares that cross with me. Because I share in His cross and am a child of God, I am precious in His sight and destined for glory.

Is the Sign of the Cross Roman Catholic?

Even though I hear this suggestion many times over, it is a challenge that comes out of ignorance and reflects more on the complicated struggles of the Protestant Reformation, the answer is unequivocally no.  The Sign of the Cross is not a Roman Catholic innovation.  The early Church Fathers from the first two hundred years of the Church’s existence have written about the use of the sign of the cross. 

Tertullian (250 A.D.) …. we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross” (De corona, 30). And in another place he said, “We Christians wear out our foreheads with the sign of the cross.”

Athanasius of Alexandria (269–373 A.D.) said,

“By the signing of the holy and life-giving cross, devils and various scourges are driven away. For it is without price and without cost and praises him who can say it. The holy fathers have, by their words, transmitted to us, and even to the unbelieving heretics, how the two raised fingers and the single hand reveal Christ our God in His dual nature but single substance.

The right hand proclaims His immeasurable strength, His sitting on the right hand of the Father, and His coming down unto us from Heaven. Again, by the movement of the hands to our right the enemies of God will be driven out, as the Lord triumphs over the Devil with His unconquerable power, rendering him dismal and weak.”

St. Cyril of Jerusalem (386 A.D.) in his Catechetical Lectures stated,

“Let us then not be ashamed to confess the Crucified. Be the cross our seal, made with boldness by our fingers on our brow and in everything; over the bread we eat and the cups we drink, in our comings and in our goings out; before our sleep, when we lie down and when we awake; when we are travelling, and when we are at rest”.

This is the theology of the cross my grandmother would never have been able to articulate but an action she carried out as a humble act of devotion.  She taught me how to make that sign and it then became a part of my spiritual arsenal, one potent enough to sustain me in a range of challenging moments in my life.

Pray with all your heart, your mind and your soul

Most, if not all religions make use of physical signs and gestures.  The language of spirituality speaks of such actions as “thickening” the power of religious language. The actions become prayers without words.  In that sense, the sign of the cross is a form of body language no different to the other gestures we use in the liturgy: the gestures of raising the hands in prayer, kneeling, bowing, and so on.

Making the sign of the cross says something, and when it is done in public (for example, at the blessing before meals in a public place) it is also an act of faith. The sign of the cross speaks and confesses.

Another important aspect of this signing is that Single symbolic actions or gestures can make more than just a single message.   Quite obviously, signing ourselves is a mark of our belief in the saving actions of Jesus Christ. But there is more.  It is an invoking of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In the Byzantine tradition, originating from the Eastern part of the Roman Empire that continued for a thousand years after the fall of Rome, it is stipulated that the sign be made either with two fingers (symbolising the two natures of Christ) or three fingers (symbolising the Trinity), thus making a theological statement. A common Byzantine formula used while signing oneself is, “Blessed is our God at all times now and always and forever. Amen.” 

In a book by Romano Guardini I had been given to read in my final year of High School I discovered a beautiful and helpful quotation that I had written in a blank page at the end of my Bible.  It offers a rich spiritual insight into the power of the sign of the cross…

It is the holiest of all signs. Make a large cross, taking time, thinking what you do. Let it take in your whole being—body, soul, mind, will, thought, feelings, your doing and not-doing—and, by signing it with the cross, strengthen and consecrate the whole in the strength of Christ, in the name of the triune God.

It is the perfect prayer to make when we climb out of our bed to begin a new day and when we turn out the light and prepare for a night of sleep. 

Bishop Michael Hough                                                                  February 2025