Millennium Cross in Cathedral sanctuary is a Jubilee Year reminder of hope, reconciliation
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An old rugged cross stands next to the altar in the Cathedral of St. Joseph throughout this Jubilee Year of Hope, as a reminder of the sure and certain hope that comes from the total, self-giving sacrifice of Christ.
Containing a relic of the True Cross on which Jesus gave his life, this Millennium Cross of Reconciliation also bridges the diocese’s observances of the Church-wide Jubilee 2025 and the Great Jubilee of 2000, which marked the beginning of the Third Millennium since the Son of God set foot on this earth.
Paul Lage (1932-2021), founder of Lage Cabinet Co. in Jefferson City, designed and built the Millennium Cross in 1999 with help from his wife, LaVerne, and their children.
Noble in its simplicity, the 6-foot-tall, cherry wood cross is modeled after the one Pope St. John Paul II (+1978-2005) carried during the Stations of the Cross on many Good Fridays in Rome.
“It meant a lot to all of us that we got to work on the cross and were able to do that for the Church,” Mrs. Lage, a member of Immaculate Conception Parish in Jefferson City, recently stated.
She remembers how honored she and her husband felt to have a relic of the True Cross in their shop while they were making the Millennium Cross.
For centuries after Jesus’s death and resurrection, crosses were seen as a terrifying symbol of human cruelty. But by about 900 A.D., images of the cross had come to be recognized as something beautiful: the bridge to the resurrection, a tool of salvation and a sign pointing the way to heaven.
Bishop Emeritus John R. Gaydos, who led the Jefferson City diocese from 1997-2018, blessed the Millennium Cross at a diocesan Mass in the Cathedral on Pentecost Sunday in 1999.
Bishop Gaydos called the Millennium Cross “a visible reminder and call to reconciliation for each parishioner so that we may enter the new millennium grateful for God’s mercy and be witnesses of that mercy.”
From there, the cross began an 18-month journey to more than 90 parishes and missions throughout the diocese to initiate the local Church’s observance of Jubilee 2000.
Afterward, the cross was given a place of prominence in the former chapel of the Cathedral until the cathedral’s renovation in 2022-23 and was brought forth each year for Veneration of the Cross during Good Friday liturgies.
Mr. Lage also built the cross for the crucifix in the sanctuary of Immaculate Conception Church in Jefferson City when that church was renovated in 2001.
Mrs. Lage applied the finish to both crosses.
“It’s always very special when you do something for Jesus,” she said.
She noted that she and Mr. Lage made many pilgrimages to holy places around the world in their nearly 61 years of marriage.
Now, she plans to make a special pilgrimage to the Cathedral to see the Millennium Cross again and offer prayers in her husband’s memory.
“Paul was a man of great faith,” she noted. “It always meant a lot to him when he could do something at church.”
