Alpha & Omega Gold & Enamel Pyx

Product Description

This beautiful Alpha & Omega Gold & Enamel Pyx (Greek for “box”) is made by hand with 24 Karat gold. This pyx is a worthy and appropriate vessel for conveying the Eucharist from the Mass to those in need of food for their journey back to spiritual and physical wholeness or for their journey from life through death into eternal life and into God’s tender and eternal embrace.

The Pyx carries the Body of Christ (Eucharist) from the Body of Christ (the Community) to Separated Members of the Body of Christ (the Infirm and Hospitalized)

The priest and extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist (Holy Communion) are commissioned by the Body of Christ gathered together at the Mass to bring the Body of Christ in a pyx (Greek for “box”) to the homebound, the bedridden, and the infirm in hospitals.  This ministry is an imperative for the worshipping community, for Jesus calls each of us to visit the sick: “I was sick and you visited me” (Matthew 25:31-46). Bringing Holy Communion to the sick is both a corporal and spiritual work of mercy.  Priests and extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist minister to the whole person – body, mind, and soul. They serve as ambassadors of Christ.  When they bring the Body and Blood of our Lord to the sick, they are indeed an instrument of evangelization by their actions of love, kindness, and comfort.

Two Sacred Symbols configured as the Jerusalem Cross

The Chi-Rho is a shorthand abbreviation for “Christ”: Chi (Χ) and Rho (P) being the first two letters in Greek for“Christ” (ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ – Christos). “The Anointed one” is in Greek Christ, a translation of the Hebrew Messiah (משיח).

Alpha and Omega – Alpha (A) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and Omega (Ω)) is the last letter. Jesus Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End (Revelation 22:13).

The Jerusalem Cross (also known as “Five-fold Cross”, “cross-and-crosslets”, and “Crusaders’ Cross”) consists of a large “Cross potent” (that is, a cross composed of four “crutches”) and surrounded by four smaller Greek crosses, one in each quadrant. This cross became known as the “Jerusalem” cross because it was was used as the emblem and coat of arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099-1291) from the 1280’s. The symbolism of the five-fold cross is variously given as the Five Wounds of Christ, Christ and the Four Evangelists, or Christ and the four quarters of the world.

The papal Order of the Holy Sepulchre uses the Jerusalem cross as its emblem, as does the Custodian of the Holy Land, the head of the Franciscan friars who serve at the holy Christian sites in Jerusalem. In the early 20th century, the Jerusalem cross came to be used as a symbol of world evangelization in Protestant Christianity. The Jerusalem cross was awarded as the “Episcopal Church Service Cross” during World War I by the Episcopal Church in the United States. The Jerusalem cross was chosen as the emblem of the Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag (German Evangelical Church Congress) in the 1950’s, but since the 1960’s shown in a simplified form with the central Cross potent replaced by a simple Greek cross.

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