Why Do Catholics Make the Sign of the Cross?
“But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal 6:14).”
When you see someone wearing a wedding ring you know that person belongs to someone. The ring is a sign that says that the person is married. Wearing it on the ring finger has meaning too-it is that finger that it is believed to have a blood vessel that leads to the heart.
In a similar way, making the sign of the cross is an outward sign of who we belong to. Here are some interesting facts about the sign of the cross that many Protestants don’t know:
Did the Catholic Church invent the sign of the cross in 300 A.D.?
No, but many Protestants have have that misconception. That misconception comes from a book called “Roman Catholicism” by Lorraine Boettner. In the book, he lists what he calls”Some Roman Catholic Heresies and Inventions. Many of the “inventions” on his list are fabricated.
Here is what Boettner says about making the sign of the cross, apparently hoping to imply that the practice was “invented” inn 300 A.D:
Item: “Making the sign of the cross . . . [A.D.] 300.”
“That’s it. That’s the whole charge: that the sign of the cross was not “invented” until well into the Christian era. In reality, we can show that Christians were making the sign of the cross at a much earlier date. The theologian Tertullian, writing in A.D. 211, said that “In all our travels and movements in all our coming in and going out, in putting of our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, whatever employment occupieth us, we [Christians] mark our foreheads with the sign [of the cross]” (The Chaplet [Crown] 3). Making the sign of the cross was already an old custom when he wrote. It may well have been common even while the apostles were alive”.
-Catholic Answers More Catholic “Inventions”
Scott Hahn, in “Signs of Life” expounds, “We could fill a book with the early Christians’ testimonies to this practice. Martyrs made the Sign as they were taken to their death. Even Julian, the notoriously ex-Christian emperor, fell back to tracing the Sign whenever he felt oppressed by demons.
2. What does the sign of the cross signify?
It signifies that we belong to Christ!
“This is the life we received in baptism, when we were marked with the Sign and saved from our sins.
The early Christians compared this to the mark on the brow of Cain (Gen 4:15), which protected him from the punishment he deserved.
They saw it foreshadowed also in the mark of blood on the doorposts that saved the firstborn sons of the Israelites at the Passover (Ex 12:7).
They saw it even more vividly depicted in the oracle of the prophet Ezekiel, who saw that the righteous in Jerusalem would one day be saved because of a “mark upon the foreheads” (Ez 9:4). What was that mark? According to the ancient rabbis, it was tav, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which in ancient times was drawn as a cross.
In the New Testament, in the book of Revelation, St. John saw the faithful in heaven distinguished by this Sign on their foreheads (Rev 14:1, 22:4). “Signs Of Life”, Scott Hahn (emphasis mine)
The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that when Catholics are baptized “the sign of the cross, on the threshold of the celebration, marks with the imprint of Christ the one who is going to belong to him and signifies the grace of the Redemption Christ won for us by his cross” (CCC 1235).
Thereafter, each time we make the sign of the cross we remember that we belong to Christ. –“What is the Significance of Making the Sign of the Cross Before and After Private Prayer”? Catholic Answers
3. Where can I learn more about the sign of the cross and how it related to me?
This short video answers 3 more questions about the sign of the cross: What does it mean? What is your price tag? Why did God make you?