This image stands in the Rituale romanum (in the edition from 1937 in Regensburg) at the header of the part of the book containing the rite of the sacrament of anointing the sick and prayers with the sick and for the dying. Artistically, its neo-Romanesque nature is evident. To understand the depicted scene, our P. Jerome knew the key (perhaps due to Capuchin education and tradition in his home parish). And then it was enough to take the book Legenda aurea and turn to the feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross:
"Judas (a righteous Jew at the time of Saint Helena) then lifted up his robe, began to dig with all his strength, and at a depth of twenty paces found three crosses. He immediately brought them to the queen (i.e., Saint Helena). However, since they could not distinguish Christ's cross from the crosses of the criminals, they exposed them in the middle of the city and waited for God's glory. And behold, when around the ninth hour a dead young man was being carried on a stretcher, Judas stopped the stretcher, placed one cross on the corpse, then another, but the dead man still did not rise. However, when he placed the third cross on him, the deceased immediately came back to life.
In Church history, it is read that when one of the prominent women of the city was already half dead, the bishop of Jerusalem, Macarius, placed the first and then the second cross on her, but had no success; then he placed the third cross and the woman immediately recovered and rose with her eyes open. However, Ambrose says that Helena recognized the true cross by the inscription that Pilate had ordered to be affixed to it; she is said to have found and read that inscription." (Jakob de Voragine, Legenda aurea, Vyšehrad, Prague 1984, p. 180.) And this certainly applies to us and to everyone: "the touch of Christ's cross" raises, heals, and opens the eyes...
