Jamestown, Ny (WJET/WFXP)– After being missing since Sunday, the missing historic cross belonging to a Chautauqua County church has been returned, with the church’s rector calling the situation a story of something being given back rather than stolen.
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Jamestown, New York, announced that their 143-year-old cross had been recovered and returned to them by Jamestown police on Wednesday morning, saying the story is about the possibility of something in the human heart turning.
Jamestown church asking for safe return of 143-year-old cross
The church said in their announcement that they had spotted an unfamiliar face on their security footage and Jamestown police were later able to find them and safely return the cross, though disassembled and missing some pieces. Rector Luke Fodor added that the rest of the pieces were later returned and the cross is being reassembled.
In light of the cross being returned, the church’s rector, Luke Fodor, said the situation reminded him of two stories about not defining people by their worst acts.
Clinton County pair charged after police pursuit ends in Massena
Fodor specifically recalls the part of the famous play where Valjean steals silver from the bishop who helped him, only to be forgiven and to use the silver to become an honest man. He also recalled the story of Abbot Gelasius who silently forgave the monk who stole his hand-made bible and tried to sell it back to him and later confessed.
“It is a story about the possibility—however fragile, however hidden—that something in the human heart can turn. And maybe, in some quiet way, it is a small echo of the larger mystery we are always trying to name: that what is lost is not always lost forever…that what is taken can be restored… and that even in the shadow of the Cross, resurrection is already at work,” St. Luke’s said in their post…