Why do we make the sign of the cross?
By the sign of the cross we openly confess our faith in the crucified Lord and glorify Him with our body (1 Cor. 6:20). That in the time of the apostles too there was a custom of using the hands during prayer as a means of expressing faith is testified by the Apostle Paul: “I will that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting” (1 Tim. 2:8). In the psalm it is written too: “The lifting up of the hands – as an evening sacrifice” (Ps. 140:2).
Our sacrifice is Christ, Who was crucified for us (1 Cor. 5:7; Heb. 9:28); that is, when we lift up our hands in making the sign of the cross, we express our faith in Christ crucified for us. The early Christians signed themselves with the cross with the right hand during prayer. St Justin Martyr (165) testifies to this: “Christians should pray facing the east, and should make the cross with the right hand and not with the left, so as better to offer up their prayer to God.”
Tertullian, who died in the year 220, writes: “According to the teaching of the apostles, at the beginning and at the end of every good work, at every going out and coming in, when dressing, when washing, when going to the table, to the lamp, to the bed, to the chair — in short, always we should guard ourselves with the sign of the cross. By this they instruct their disciples, and through them all the faithful, that as a sign of the confession of faith they should set with the sign of the cross a seal upon the face and upon the breast.”
By putting together the three fingers of the right hand (the thumb, the index and the middle finger) we confess the Holy Trinity, and by laying the remaining two fingers on the palm, the two natures of Jesus Christ, the human and the divine. In making the sign of the cross we bring the hand first to the forehead, the second time to the stomach, the third time to the right shoulder, and the fourth to the left; by this the cross is depicted on which the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified for us. We should take care that in making the sign of the cross the lower end of the cross does not come out shorter than the upper, so that we do not depict an inverted cross, as is shown in the drawing below:
By the sign of the cross we write our faith on our body as though in letters. Such a custom took shape in the Church of Christ from the most ancient times, to which Cyril of Jerusalem (4th century) testifies: “Indeed, we are not ashamed to make the sign of the cross on the forehead and on everything.”
And the most important thing: when we sign ourselves with the cross with the words “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” we bless every good work of ours and guard ourselves from the evil one.
That is why the devil tries, through various sects, to make us doubt the rightness of the sign of the cross and so to make us let go of that mighty weapon which does not allow him to bewitch us and take possession of us.
