SAINT Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, was converted to Christianity when she was 63 years old, according to Eusebius, a church historian.
She compensated the time lost in ignorance about the Lord by inspiring faith in God among the Romans and through her innumerable works of charity.aint Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, was converted to Christianity when she was 63 years old, according to Eusebius, a church historian.
Fr. Hugo Hoever, in Lives of the Saints, said that when the emperor planned to erect a church on Mount Calvary, Saint Helena, who was already 83 then, desired to see work done and went to Jerusalem to find the Holy Cross.
Excavations yielded three crosses and Helena identified Jesus’ cross by the attached title near one of them.
She built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the site where the cross was found. The feast of the Triumph of the Cross is commemorated on September 14, the day of the discovery of the cross.
Although controversy existed on who should be credited for finding the cross of the Lord, Saint Ambrose, in his sermon in Theodosius, credited it to Saint Helena.
Theologians said that God prolonged her life to edify her example on how to honor God.
Helena erected a church near the grotto of the Nativity in Bethlehem and another on the Mount of Ascension near Jerusalem. She also restored older churches and enriched them with precious relics, vessels and ornaments.
Early life
Helena is a Briton by British tradition, noted G. K. Chesterton in his book A Short History of England. This is, likewise, noted by Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose 12th century Historia Regum Britannie reports that she is the daughter of British King Coel, as likewise cited by Antonina Harbus in Helena of Britain in Medieval Legend.
Ecclesiastical historians of England generally believe it is so, and Leland cited that King Coel is a friend of the Romans.
However, Joan Carroll Cruz in Secular Saints, as well as A.J.M. Mausolfe and J.K. Mausolfe, contends that she is of Asian origin. Born in Drepanum, Bithynia, in Asia Minor, she is the daughter of an innkeeper.
Following Eutropius Brevarium records citing that she is of “low background,” Saint Ambrose was the first to call her stabularia, which means stable maid or innkeeper. Citing it as a virtue, she called Helena a bona stabularia or good stable maid. Since she is about 80 years old on her return from Palestine between 326 and 328, Helena was probably born between 248 and 250. Roman General Constantius Chlorux, on a visit to the inn, was attracted to Helena and married her. They had one child—Constantine, the future Constantine the Great.
In 293 Chlorux was made Caesar or Emperor by Diocletian. Persuaded to divorce the humbly born Helena, she married Theodora, the step-daughter of Emperor Maximian. When Chlorux died, Constantine was proclaimed emperor.
Christianity—the heartof western civilization
In gratitude for his victory over Maxencius at the Malvian Bridge under the banner of the Cross on October 28, 312, Constantine the Great legalized Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire.
Constantine, the loving son, redeemed his mother from a “life of veritable disgrace and humiliation,” and named her Empress of the World and Mistress of the Empire. He renamed the city of her birth Helenopolis.
She was converted to Christianity and became an epitome of a devout servant of God. She used the resources of the empire to help the poor and distressed. She dressed simply and assisted in church activities.
She went to Palestine to venerate religious places made sacred with the presence of Jesus and the apostles.
In 326 her efforts to look for the cross where Jesus was nailed was rewarded. Later it fell into the hands of the Persians but was recovered by King Heraclitus in 629.
Divided into smaller parts, the relic of the true cross can be found in many parts of the world. A part of the cross is enshrined in Monasterio de Tarlac, Mount of Resurrection in Lubigan, San Jose, Tarlac, under the care of the Servants of The Risen Christ.
Helena’s discovery of the cross of Christ is depicted in Santacruzan, a Filipino religious ritual which incorporates Marian celebrations and devotions to saints.
Honored in death
Helena died in Rome in August 326 or 328 on the 20th year of the reign of Constantine the Great, who honored her with a magnificent statue.
The last coins ordered by Constantine in 330 bore her full name, Flavia Julia Helena.
A shrine in her honor was erected in Saint Peter’s Basilica, although she was buried in Mausoleum of Helena in Via Labicana, outside Rome. Her skull is displayed in the Cathedral of Trier, Germany.
She is not only venerated by Roman Catholics, but also by Anglicans, Lutherans and by the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches.
The Byzantines refer to her and Constantine as “holy, illustrious and great emperors crowned by God and equal with apostles.”
Her canonization preceeds the practice of formal canonization by the Holy Sea.
Saint Helena is the patron saint of archaeologists, converts, divorced people, dyers, needle and nail makers, and those experiencing difficult marriages.
Online sources said she is revered as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, and the Lutheran Church commemorates her.
Her feast day in the Roman Catholic Church falls on August 18.
Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education-National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris College in Calauan, Laguna.
Image credits: Wikimedia Commons