40(ish) Days of Devotion - Day 39

I'm sitting here this morning wondering a more than a few things. Some are simple, like should I go upstairs and get a cup of coffee? Others are more complex, like wanting to understand the reasons for making the sign of the cross. The third category that I'm thinking about is more practical, like when I'll be able to change my laundry over so that I have dry clothes before I leave. I'm sure that you don't care about most of that, so I'll go get myself some coffee and write more about what I'm learning about crossing yourself.

Since I didn't grow up Catholic, or in any other Christian tradition that does the sign of the cross, it is a new thing to me. I learned how to make it several years ago from secular movies, using less than holy rhymes to remember the order. But as I've been (less than perfectly) reading and praying through A Seasonal Book of Hours, I've started to find myself less troubled by the gesture. There are times where I find myself using it when I am praying, even without the book. I'm still not comfortable with using it in public, but that may just take time.

So, what is the sign of the cross?

According to Wikipedia: Sign of the Cross: The sign of the cross (Latin: signum crucis), or blessing oneself or crossing oneself, is a ritual blessing made by members of many branches of Christianity. This blessing is made by the tracing of an upright cross or + across the body with the right hand, often accompanied by spoken or mental recitation of the trinitarian formula.

The motion is the tracing of the shape of a cross in the air or on one's own body, echoing the traditional shape of the cross of the Christian Crucifixion narrative. There are two principal forms: the one—three fingers, right to left—is exclusively used in the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church of the Byzantine and Chaldean Tradition; the other—left to right, other than three fingers—is the one used in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, Anglicanism, Methodism, Lutheranism and Oriental Orthodoxy (see below). The ritual is rare within other Christian traditions.

This can lead to another question. What is the trinitarian formula? It is a simple phrase. "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." These words appear in the Bible in Matthew 28:19. (Again referencing Wikipedia: Trinitarian Formula.)

If this sign is so common, and has a Biblical basis for the words that accompany it, then why aren't we more familiar with it?

Thoughts to be continued in another post...