Touching Christ's True Cross (Text Only)

The following is an entry from my spiritual journal:

As I sat there and listened to the talk about relics in the Catholic Church and seeing a picture of the relic of Christ’s True Cross up on the screen, I began thinking, “I don’t think I can handle this.” And then I began SAYING that as tears started to gush from my eyes with the mere mention of that possibility.

Then as I entered the room where the relic lay, the amount of tears correlated exactly with the distance I was from the Cross. The feeling that Christ truly died for me was overwhelming. I felt like Mary Magdalene in the bible, washing Christ’s feet with her hair, as my own long hair flowed over the remnants of the True Cross. I began stepping away and back just to see what my tears would do, … Mike, my friend who is in the process of becoming a priest, noticed me doing this, touched my shoulder and said:

“Your tears are the outpouring of the Holy Spirit within you.”

In my wonder, I had never thought of that, but now know it is the truth and can relate it to the feeling (at least for a moment, if not longer) during every Eucharist.

The following day, the exact description of my feelings resembled most closely the character of Imogene Herman from The Best Christmas Pagaent Ever:

Imogene’s eye was all puffy and swollen. She had walked into the corner of the choir-robe cabinet, in a kind of daze—as if she had just caught on to the idea of God, and the wonder of Christmas. … Christmas just came over her all at once, like a case of chills and fever. And so she was crying, and walking into furniture.

Here is the context of the text, in order to examine the full impact:

Well. It was the best Christmas pageant we ever had. Everybody said so, but nobody seemed to know why. … There was something special, everyone said—but they just couldn’t put their finger on what. … Imogene’s eye was all puffy and swollen. She had walked into the corner of the choir-robe cabinet, in a kind of daze—as if she had just caught on to the idea of God, and the wonder of Christmas. … Christmas just came over her all at once, like a case of chills and fever. And so she was crying, and walking into furniture. … Imogene did ask for a set of the Bible-story pictures, and she took out the Mary picture and said it was exactly right. … I think it meant that no matter how she herself was, Imogene liked the idea of the Mary in the picture—all pink and white and pure-looking, as if she never washed the dishes or cooked supper or did anything at all except have Jesus on Christmas Eve. But as far as I’m concerned, Mary is going to look a lot like Imogene Herdman—sort of nervous and bewildered, but ready to clobber anyone who laid a hand on her baby. And the Wise Men are always going to be Leroy and his brothers, bearing ham. When we came out of the church that night it was cold and clear, with crunchy snow underfoot and bright, bright stars overhead. And I thought about the Angel of the Lord—Gladys, with her skinny legs and her dirty sneakers sticking out from under her robe, yelling at all of us, everywhere: “Hey! Unto you a child is born!”

In an attempt to describe the feeling, I made this facebook observation for nonbelievers:

Yesterday evening I was able to see and touch a piece of Christ's true Cross, ... and I was moved to tears. With the addition of a piece of the lance that pierced His side and a piece of the Crown of Thorns, I closely resembled a special woman who you may remember, drying Christ's feet with her hair. The whole idea that Christ died for me was overwhelming. I was truly touched by the Holy Spirit.