May 3rd - Roodmas

Roodmas is also known as the Feast of the Holy Rood or the Discovery of the Cross.  Rood is an old English word meaning rod and in Christian terms cross.  The feast is a commemoration of St. Helena finding the True Cross in Jerusalem in 355.

St. Helena b. ca. 250 and d. ca. 330 was the wife or concubine of Constantius Chlorus, Roman emperor and mother of Constantine the Great.  It is said that while on pilgrimage to Palestine at age 80 she discovered the True Cross.  Helena is also credited with the construction of the Church of the Nativity and the Church on the Mount of Olives. She took the cross back to Rome in 327 where it remains today. 

When Jerusalem was besieged during the first Crusade ca. 1095 and things were looking grim, the Christian soldiers were rallied by the "discovery" of a piece of the Holy Rood. They went on to have a victory over the infidels.  There are several shrines which claim to have pieces of the true cross.  Makes a person wonder how large the cross actually was.