This was completed several months ago for a parish in North Carolina. It was commissioned as a processional cross, and the same image was to be on both sides. The very bottom of both sides is different; one side has four Franciscan saints, and the other has just St. Francis and St. Clare, along with a first class relic of St. Francis.
I had created a short explanation of the imagery present in the crucifix, along with some discussion about where I had to make decisions about what to include or exclude, as parts of the original were too damaged or missing altogether. I’m including that information here below.
The top of the cross is Christ ascending into heaven. Above is the hand of God the Father, held in a position of blessing. The hand of God sometimes represents God’s intentional action and presence in an event. It’s often seen in icons of the Annunciation, and is also seen in icons such as this, the resurrection of Christ.
All the angels in this processional cross have different colors of skin, representing our diverse origins. The oval circle surrounding Christ is a special halo called a “mandorla”, meaning almond shaped, but it also is sometimes present as an oval. Christ carries a triumphant staff. The lettering above the halo is the Latin for “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. In the original, the Greek abbreviation IHS was used instead of IESVS, but here the Latin was used to be consistent with scripture.
The halo contains the crossbars representing that this is Christ. The Greek letters ώ Ό Ν stand for “He who is”. In the original San Damiano cross the head and halo protrude out from the flat plane of the cross so that anyone looking up would see Christ’s face looking down.The head of Christ is surrounded by a halo and no crown of thorns, indicating this is Christ resurrected, not Christ suffering. This cross is of the “Christ Triumphant” type, which is explained in more detail below. Basically, we know from the passages about St. Thomas that a post-resurrection image is identifiable by the wounds being still visible.
To the left of the body of Christ are Mary and St. John. The ScA above the word ‘Maria’ means “holy”; that is not the abbreviation for ‘Saint.’ The small figure along the side is Longinus, with the spear he used to pierce the side of Christ. Note that Longinus does not have a halo, though some lists of saints do include him, as he converted to Christianity. Both Mary and St. John are motioning to Christ, recognizing it is he that connects them together.
In the original, there are six saints at the bottom of the cross. However, that area was damaged, so scholars have suggested they perhaps were Saints Damian, Ruffin, Michael, John the Baptist, Peter and Paul, patrons of churches in and around Assisi.
On the base in my version St. Francis is on the left, St. Clare is on the right, and in the middle is a first class relic of St. Francis. St. Francis is showing us the stigmata he received and is carrying the Bible. St. Clare holds a monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament. It symbolizes an event in 1240 which prevented the Saracens from sacking her convent and Assisi. On the other side of this cross are again St. Francis and St. Clare, as well as St. Anthony of Padua and St. Bonaventure, other well-known Franciscan saints.
To the right are Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James. Next to them stands the centurion who in Matthew Chapter 27 said, “This surely is the Son of God”. Next to the centurion’s shoulder is a small head and the suggestion of more heads behind him. They represent the others that were with the centurion watching over the crucifixion scene. The figure in blue, small and in the same relative position as Longinus, some think is a temple soldier, servant or priest. He has no title near him, so it’s a matter of speculation. Some believe he was the one who offered Jesus vinegar on a reed, but no reed is visible, so this figure’s identity is not certain. The rooster and the cat are to the right of the legs. The rooster
symbolizes the human failure to keep promises, as St. Peter demonstrated in his denial of Christ. The cat symbolizes Christ catching the devil. This motif was often found in medieval manuscripts, which showed a cat with a rat in its mouth.
Historically, different styles of crosses were most common in different centuries. The San Damiano Cross in Assisi was done around 1100, when the Christ Triumphant style was prevalent.
In the first 1000 years of Christianity, Christians focused on the divine nature of Christ and didn’t discuss the sufferings of Christ on the cross. Non-Christians would ridicule Christ as someone who couldn’t save himself from the Jews, so iconographers generally avoided portraying Christ suffering. Thus in this style, Christ looks strong and at peace, with only a symbolic trace amount of blood painted at the wounds.
https://www.lagazzettaitaliana.com/ history-culture/9013-a-pain
The general culture of Rome lauded military virtues of strength and victory in battle, so instead of the image of the dead Christ, the missionaries would stress the triumph of Christ over death, and the cross as a symbol of victory. In the Christ Triumphant form of the cross, scenes from the whole Passion sequence surround the corpus, from being taken prisoner to the angels at the empty tomb. If nothing else, iconograhers customarily included representations of Mary and John at the foot of the cross. From the 10th through the 12th centuries, personal intimacy with Christ grew in the development of religious practices, and therefore the humanity of Christ and his sufferings were more commonly represented.
Omissions:
In the original, white swirls and scroll work appear just inside the outer border. Some boxes with symbols in them are in the top left area. Scholars have sometimes suggested those swirls are references to Christ being the vine. However, one commentary indicated those square shapes in the corner were heraldry symbols of the patron who paid for it. If that is so, they are not essential to the core symbolism and were omitted.
The border with the seashell pattern was added later, which is why it was not included in this version. In the bottom left you can see a red arrow pointing to a clear gap, revealing the pieces that were added. Other crosses done at that time commonly have a solid gold border. That pattern was left out to keep the processional cross closer to the original.
The Holy Face 