“Helena was visited that emperors might be redeemed." ~ The ancient sources on Saint Helena's discovery of the True Cross

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The feast day of Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine, is commemorated by Catholics on August 18. Aside from her role as matriarch of the Constantinian dynasty, Helena is most remembered today for her finding of the True Cross of Jesus Christ. This discovery took place during Helena's celebrated pilgrimage to the Holy Land near the end of her life, during which time she undertook the task of uncovering the sites associated with Christ's life and passion and the building of commemorative shrines.

Eusebius Pamphilus, Helena's contemporary and bishop of Caesarea Maritima, records many of Helena's deeds during this trek. Curiously, he does not mention her discovery of the True Cross. For this, we must seek another early source, and one even more illustrious than the historian Eusebius: Saint Ambrose of Milan.

In his eulogy on the death of Theodosius the Great, a man whom he had once barred from the Sacred Liturgy due to his very public sins, Ambrose provides a lovely interlude commemorating Helena. He uses her discovery of the True Cross, along with the nails of the crucifixion, to relay a moral lesson on the difference between the Christian Roman Emperors who are restrained in their actions by the tenets of Christianity, and the pagan emperors who were encumbered by no such restraints:

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