Since 2018, a Mission Cross has been traveling around Hungary to help promote the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress in Budapest, which will be held from September 5-12, 2021.
According to the official website of the Congress, “The Mission Cross was crafted back in 2007, for the Mission on the City in Budapest. The almost 5 metres high oak Cross with bronze fittings is the work of the master goldsmith Csaba Ozsvári (1963-2009) and it is kept in the Cathedral of Esztergom.”
The cross is beautifully decorated and “[i]ts floral ornaments depicts the motifs of the goldsmith’s art of the age of the Hungarian Conquest.”
The leaves are meant to recall how Jesus’ cross is often connected to the tree of life.
On the cross are also images of a peacock, an early Christian symbol of eternal life.
In addition to it being a cross with a particular Hungarian style, it is also a reliquary.
The cross houses “a relic of the Holy Cross and within the turns of the leaves it is surrounded by the relics of Hungarian saints and blesseds.”
This further cements the symbolism of how these Hungarian saints, blesseds and martyrs found eternal life in the cross of Jesus.
The cross was blessed by Pope Francis in 2017 and will remain in Budapest during the duration of the International Eucharistic Congress.
And today we celebrate...