The day of the Holy Cross

Every year, on May 3 a special date is celebrated for workers in the construction industry. But what are the origins of this celebration? What is behind this popular celebration?

 

It's a holiday. The cross is blessed, adorned and placed with respect at some point in the work. At noon there are the Comares, chilies, smoke and tortillas, which do not stop passing from hand to hand. The music goes up a little bit more, between laughter and refreshments. Architects, engineers, contractors, teachers, pawns, all meet in the work because it is the Holy Cross, a day to celebrate.

Why this particular date?

Behind the popular celebration there are several stories.

1. The feast of the Holy Cross is linked to the arrival of the first rains and the beginning of the corn planting, in this sense, the festival has an eminently agricultural character: it celebrates the fertility and the good achievement of the crops. Since pre-Hispanic times, just in the first days of May, our ancestors performed rituals dedicated to Tlaloc in order that the rain came and the harvest was abundant.
2. When the first evangelizers arrived in these lands, they put crosses in the new constructions of churches, convents and houses of prayer. It is believed that the nakedness of the wood was not well received by the natives of the place, so they preferred to paint them with bright colors and decorate them with flowers and ribbons.
3. But the story of this day also goes back to the end of the third century, when the Empress Elena, mother of Constantine, decided to look for the cross on which Jesus died and ordered the demolition of a temple dedicated to the Roman pagan gods; Among the rubble, 3 crosses were found and to know which was the cross where Christ died, they asked for a sick person to touch them and suddenly, one cured him. Because of this finding, the woman was canonized, and to this day she is venerated as Santa Elena de la Cruz. The celebration, also known as "Day of the mason", is related to this story because those who demolished the Roman temple were, precisely, construction workers.

All these stories support the traditional feast, a rite that besides celebrating the trade, and highlighting the importance of all those who build our spaces with effort; It is a collective desire to ask that the work be conducted to a good end.