Holy Cross and Construction Worker Day on May 3rd

May 3rd, Holy Cross Day

A few days ago, on May 3rd, Pamela, from Tenerife Daily Photo, posted a somehow modest cross for the Dí­a de la Cruz if we consider that all around the Canary Islands the word cross, cruz in Spanish, is present in many of the towns like Santa Cruz, Puerto de la Cruz, et-cetera. Come on Pamela, you can do much better than that! 😉 So I had to do a follow up, even if it is a few days later and a few kilometers away from Santa Cruz.

I knew it was the Day of the Holy Cross, which is also the Day of the Construction Worker in many countries in Latin America, but I was not able to get a shot that day because we were in the process of moving and there were a lot errands and things to do. Two days later I was able to get a shot of a decorated cross at a construction site. The Day of the Santa Cruz is also celebrated as the construction worker’s day which means the architect, engineer or landlord throws a party for the construction workers which includes a food feast and alcoholic beverages (most of the time, but not necessarily). The construction worker make a cross from the materials available on site and the post it somewhere so everybody can see it. Most of the time, they also decorate the cross.

The legend has it that when they were unburying Jerusalem, they found three crosses, one of them larger than the other two. When some of the diggers touch the larger cross, their ailments healed and the cross were thought to be miraculous. The priests on site called a funeral passing by and the dead man’s hand was made to touch the cross and he resurrected and walked away. The cross was taken immediately to Rome, the Vatican to be precise, and a chapel was built for it. This chapel was built in record time and for this reason and for the fact that the man who resurrected was a construction worker who had died while at work a few days earlier, this date became the day of the construction worker. All of this as seen on tv, a few details more or less.

Don’t forget to browse over Santa Cruz category at Wikipedia to get an idea of how far the Spaniards and Portuguese took those two words.

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