Houston, Texas, Aug 11, 2017 / 03:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- “We are many parts, but we are all one body,” says the refrain of a popular ’80s Church hymn, based on the words of 1 Cor. 12:12.
While we are one body in Christ, if you happen to be a Catholic saint, the many parts of your own body might be spread out all over the world.
Take, for example, St. Catherine of Siena.
A young and renowned third-order Dominican during the Middle Ages, she led an intense life of prayer and penance and is said to have single-handedly ended the Avignon exile of the successors of Peter in the 14th century.
When she died in Rome, her hometown of Siena, Italy, wanted her body. Realizing they would probably get caught if they took her whole corpse, the Siena thieves decided that it would be safer if they just took her head.
When they were stopped on their way out by guards outside of Rome, they said a quick prayer, asking for St. Catherine of Siena’s intercession. The guards opened the bag and did not find the dead head of St. Catherine, but a bag full of rose petals. Once the thieves were back in Siena, Catherine’s head re-materialized, one of the many miracles attributed to the saint.
The head of St. Catherine of Siena was placed in a reliquary in the Basilica of St. Dominic in Siena, where it can still be venerated today, along with her thumb. Her body remains in Rome, her foot is venerated in Venice.
From the Shroud of Turin, or the finger of St. Thomas, to the miraculous blood of St. Januarius, or the brain of St. John Bosco, the Catholic Church keeps and venerates many curious but nevertheless holy artifacts, known as relics, from Jesus and the saints.
To the outsider, the tradition of venerating relics (particularly of the corporeal persuasion) may seem like an outlandishly morbid practice.
But the roots of the tradition pre-date Jesus, and the practice is based in Scripture and centuries of Church teaching.
While it’s one of the most fascinating traditions of the Church, it can also be one of the most misunderstood.
Father Carlos Martins, CC, is a Custos Reliquiarum, which is an ecclesiastically appointed Curate of Relics with the authority to issue relics.
He is a member of Companions of the Cross, and the head of Treasures of the Church, a ministry that aims to give people an experience of the living God through an encounter with the relics of his saints in the form of an exposition. The ministry brings expositions of various relics throughout North America by invitation.
In the following interview with CNA, Fr. Martins answers questions and dispels some common misunderstandings about the tradition of relics.
First of all, what is a relic?
Relics are physical objects that have a direct association with the saints or with Our Lord. They are usually broken down into three classes:
First class relics are the body or fragments of the body of a saint, such as pieces of bone or flesh.
Second class relics are something that a saint personally owned, such as a shirt or book (or fragments of those items).
Third class relics are those items that a saint touched or that have been touched to a first, second, or another third class relic of a saint.
The word relic means “a fragment” or “remnant of a thing that once was by now is no longer.” Thus, we find in antique shops “Civil War relics” or “Relics of the French Revolution.” Obviously, we are not talking about these kinds of relics but rather sacred relics.
Where did the Catholic tradition of venerating saints’ relics come from?
Scripture teaches that God acts through relics, especially in terms of healing. In fact, when surveying what Scripture has to say about sacred relics, one is left with the idea that healing is what relics “do.”
When the corpse of a man was touched to the bones of the prophet Elisha the man came back to life and rose to his feet (2 Kings 13:20-21).
A woman was healed of her hemorrhage simply by touching the hem of Jesus’ cloak (Matthew 9:20-22).
The signs and wonders worked by the Apostles were so great that people would line the streets with the sick so that when Peter walked by at least his shadow might ‘touch’ them (Acts 5:12-15).
When handkerchiefs or aprons that had been touched to Paul were applied to the sick, the people were healed and evil spirits were driven out of them (Acts 19:11-12).
In each of these instances God has brought about a healing using a material object. The vehicle for the healing was the touching of that object. It is very important to note, however, that the cause of the healing is God; the relics are a means through which He acts. In other words, relics are not magic. They do not contain a power that is their own; a power separate from God.
Any good that comes about through a relic is God’s doing. But the fact that God chooses to use the relics of saints to work healing and miracles tells us that He wants to draw our attention to the saints as “models and intercessors” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 828).
When did the veneration of relics begin?
It was present from the earliest days of Christianity, during the Apostolic age itself. The following is an account written by the Church in Smyrna (modern day Izmir, Turkey) when its bishop, St. Polycarp was burned alive:
“We adore Christ, because He is the Son of God, but the martyrs we love as disciples and imitators of the Lord. So we buried in a becoming place Polycarp’s remains, which are more precious to us than the costliest diamonds, and which we esteem more highly than gold.”
(Acts of St. Polycarp, composed approx. 156 AD)
Polycarp was a significant figure. He was converted by John the Apostle, who had baptized him and subsequently ordained him a bishop. Thus we see that from its outset the Church practiced devotion to the remains of the martyrs.
What is the spiritual significance of relics?
I think that St. Jerome puts it best when he said:
“We do not worship relics, we do not adore them, for fear that we should bow down to the creature rather than to the creator. But we venerate the relics of the martyrs in order the better to adore him whose martyrs they are.” (Ad Riparium, i, P.L., XXII, 907).
We venerate relics only for the sake of worshipping God.
When we collect relics from the body of a saint, what part of the body do we use?
Any part of the saint’s body is sacred and can be placed in a reliquary. Any and every bone may be used. In addition, flesh, hair, and sometimes blood, are also used. Sometimes everything from the tomb is dispersed from it. Sometimes a tomb is preserved.
At what point in the canonization process are items or body parts considered official relics by the Church?
Before the beatification takes place, there is a formal rite whereby the relics are identified and moved (the official word is “translated”) into a church, a chapel, or an oratory. Put simply, the grave is exhumed and the mortal remains are retrieved.
Only the Church has the juridical power to formally recognize the sanctity of an individual. When the Church does this – through beatification and canonization – their relics receive the canonical recognition as being sacred relics.
There is an importance difference between beatification and canonization. Beatification is the declaration by the Church that there is strong evidence that the person in question is among the blessed in heaven. Nevertheless, beatification permits only local devotion. That is, devotion in the country in which the individual lived and died. When Mother Teresa was beatified, for instance, only in India and in her native Albania was her devotion permitted. Her Mass could not be celebrated, for example, in the United States, nor could her relics be placed within its altars.
Whereas beatification permits local devotion, canonization, on the other hand, mandates universal devotion. It grants to the canonized individual the rights of devotion throughout the universal Church.
The Church allows saints’ body parts to be scattered for relics, but forbids the scattering of ashes of the deceased who are cremated. Why is that?
Every person has a right to a burial. This means that the community has a duty to bury the dead.
Every human society and culture throughout time has felt this duty. The dead have always been buried, and archaeology has never discovered a human community that did not practice this. One could rightly say, therefore, that burying the dead forms part of our human cultural DNA.
The theological term for this instinct natural law. Nature has imprinted a law within the human heart that manifests itself in the practice of burying the dead as a final act of love and devotion, or at least an act of respect and propriety.
It should be no surprise, then, that the Church lists as one of the corporal works of mercy burying the dead. Grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.
There is flexibility in the kind of burial. Remains may be buried in the ground, in the sea, or above ground within, for example, a cave or columbarium. The point is that a burial occurs within a single place, such that it can be said that the person “occupies” the place as a final location of rest. The human heart longs for this. We see people arriving at graves and speaking to the grave as if they were speaking to the deceased. And they do so differently than they might speak to the dead at home. At the grave, they speak to the dead as if they are in a place.
For this reason, among others, the Church has always taught not only that it is completely beneath the dignity of human body to have its remains “scattered,” but also completely beneath basic human sensibilities. People need a place to encounter and meet the dead in their physicality.
Nevertheless, the saints, as members of the body of Christ, have a right to have their remains venerated. And this right, flowing from their dignity as members of the Body of Christ, supersedes their right to have their remains remain in burial.
What is the proper way to keep relics? Are lay Catholics allowed to have first class relics in their homes?
Relics are very precious. They are not something that was alive at one time and is now dead. In the case of first class relics, we are talking about flesh that is awaiting the general resurrection, where the soul of a saint will be reunited with his physical remains.
As such, the way we treat relics is of the utmost importance. Ideally, relics should be kept in a Church or chapel where they can be made available for public veneration.
The highest honor the Church can give to a relic is to place it within an altar, where the Mass may be celebrated over it. This practice dates from the earliest centuries of the Church. In fact, the sepulchers of the martyrs were the most prized altars for the liturgy.
As an alternative to encasing them within altars, they may be installed within a devotional niche where people may venerate them. Such shrines are important as they afford people a deeper experience of intimacy with the saint.
The Church does not forbid the possession of relics by lay persons. They may even keep them in their homes. However, because of the many abuses that have been committed concerning relics, the Church will no longer issue relics to individuals – not even to clergy.
These abuses included failing to give them proper devotion (neglect), careless mistreatment of them, discarding them, and in some cases, even selling them. The abuses were not necessarily committed by the person to whom the Church had originally bequeathed the relics. But when such persons became deceased, and the relics were passed on by inheritance, they were often subject to great vulnerability. With the eclipse of the Christian culture in the western world, faith can no longer be taken for granted, even among the children of the most devout people.
Thus, to protect relics, the Church only issues them to Churches, chapels, and oratories.
How important is the authenticity of the relic? How does the Church go about determining authenticity of very old relics from the beginning of the Church?
The authenticity is critically important.
But for the ancient saints, determining identity is much easier than you might think. It was tradition to build a church over top of a saint’s grave. That is why St. Peter’s Basilica is where it is, or why St. Paul Outside the Walls is there. Both encompass the tomb for the saint, which is located directly beneath the altar.
Modern archaeology has only affirmed what the ancient tradition has believed.
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Apparently, the advertisements will include some refugee/open borders propaganda. Who needs George Soros when we have Christian conservatives?
We need more people in the U.S. If you and the rest of the country knew how short-staffed hospitals and clinics are, you and the rest of the country would panic. In my hospital lab, we went from 8 microbiology technologists to 3–and we were doing not only the workload previously done by 8 people, but also all of the new COVID testing. When we tried to send out the work to a reference lab, ALL 3 huge reference labs told us that they were too short-staffed to take on any more work. The same is true for most hospital departments (except for the administrative staff–not only over-staffed but overpaid). Our decreasing U.S. population due to legal abortion and baby boomers like me and my late husband choosing to only have 2 children has caused a critical decline in our population. Our two options are (1) actively encourage couples to have bigger families (won’t happen unless the government stops asking citizens for more money for junk projects like “climate change” and instead, gives citizens BACK the money they have earned, as well as helping the poor to rise out of poverty and (2) opening the borders to non-criminal immigrants who want to work for a living in the U.S. Yes, we need to turn away the criminals, especially the drug dealers, and those who want to overthrow the U.S. or establish a “country within our country”–but all the rest who want to work should be welcomed and assimilated as quickly as possible into our country so they can work! We desperately need them!!!!
I mostly agree Mrs. Sharon. But we need to look at the way Canada & other nations can attract immigrants without relying on drug & trafficking cartels to supply them. The cartels basically run our southern border & determines who & what enters the US.
I disagree that we need more people here. Saying we need more people is like supporting a ponzi scheme. People are not working because govt benefits are too generous and its possible to make more money sitting at home than working. See this article:
https://www.businessinsider.com/unemployment-benefits-versus-average-wages-across-the-us-2021-5
The significant influx of immigrants presents many problems. The fentanyl, sex trafficking, numerous terrorists who have been caught. . Adding millions of folks in s a short time means they are using scarce water, pushing up rents and shortening the housing supply. They are filling our hospitals with no means to pay and overburdening our schools. Depressing wages for Americans too . I mean, why would you pay someone $12 an hour if there are people lined up to do it for $7 an hour?? Many of these illegals arrive poorly educated in their own language and may not know english. They become permanent members of the welfare rolls, for life. In NYC, there was a recent near riot of illegals. They had been placed in a luxury hotel where the state paid $500 PER ROOM PER NIGHT for them to be housed there and filled the hotel. The result: fights, garbage in the halls, donated food thrown away, and sexual activity in the staircase. When they were evicted to go to less luxury options, needless to say they were not happy and “activists” arrived to conduct demonstrations. I say there is no reason to expend money in this way to people who do not appreciate it. It is time to close the borders, and evict those who came here illegally. Trump, no matter your personal feelings about the man, knew a national security problem when he saw it. These are not our citizens and we owe them nothing. Further, this soft democrat focus on MILLIONS of illegals has taken scarce resources which should be helping AMERICAN homeless, many of whom are mentally ill veterans.Two more years of DEM ineptitude will destroy the country and it’s economic base. We cannot afford to support the many billions of folks who live in the rest of the world on our dime. The sooner this is shut down, the better.
What to make of the NEW border crisis of spy balloons flying over the nation??? Just more partisan ineptness by liberals who will not face facts and protect our own people. Suppose a virus was in that first balloon? . Suppose it was a nuclear radioactive payload? Why, of course, just let the Chinese fly the balloon where they wish: maybe over a big city? Maybe over a city where someone you love might live?? If China was wondering about US weakness, they have their answer. Those of you who voted in these clowns, the blood is on your hands.
LJ,
It’s about demographics. Without immigration we will resemble Japan in the not too distant future.
There are better ways of bringing immigrants to the US than what’s going on now at the border but neither side of the political aisle really wants to find a lasting solution because the situation is too good of a way to score points and drive narratives. Not to mention a never ending source of cheap, exploitable labor.
The children of immigrants who attend US schools all learn English. They will grow up to enter the workforce and keep Social Security and Medicare afloat.
I don’t think they are Christian “conservatives”. To me, nondenominational means non-committal to any specific doctrine.
If it’s all about Jesus, I am all for it.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
As usual the modern marketing of Christianity glosses over Jesus’s radical call to repent and sin no more as well as to love Jesus one is called to pick up their cross and follow Him obediently in accordance with God’s definition of sin.
We went to a non-denominational church yesterday (we went to Liturgy out of town Saturday for the vigil service). The sermon was on mercy (the church is doing a series on the Beatitudes). It actually was not a bad sermon, but no mention of repentance or justice.
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Funny thing about the Beatitudes. Jesus goes from all this really nice Warm Fuzzy Happy Feelings in Matthew 5:3 to 11 to something similar to “The Rules Matter–and by the way, I am more strict than Moses: by Matthew 5:17 to 37.
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By Matthew 11:20, He is bringing the Hellfire on Chorazin and Bethsaida.
Hello Kathryn
I agree with you. I have heard many Catholic Priests homilies on how Christ’s whole New Testament message is summed up in this warm fuzzy feeling you get when reading Jesus’ Beatitudes. Well Christ’s Beatitudes are the Beatitudes of Armageddon. Yes! The whole world filled with only the meek, humble and pure of heart will be wonderful, once the unrepentant wicked are removed from the earth by Jesus.
Matthew 5:5 The Beatitudes
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land
Psalms 37:9
Those who do evil will be cut off, but those who wait for the LORD will inherit the earth. Wait a little, and the wicked will be no more; look for them and they will not be there. But the poor will inherit the earth,…
…The wicked perish, enemies of the LORD; They shall be consumed like fattened lambs; like smoke they disappear. The wicked one borrows but does not repay; the righteous one is generous and gives. For those blessed by the Lord will inherit the earth, but those accursed will be cut off….
…When the unjust are destroyed, and the offspring of the wicked cut off, The righteous will inherit the earth and dwell in it forever….
…Wait eagerly for the LORD, and keep his way; He will raise you up to inherit the earth; you will see when the wicked are cut off….
…Sinners will be destroyed together; the future of the wicked will be cut off. The salvation of the righteous is from the LORD, their refuge in a time of distress. The LORD helps and rescues them, rescues and saves them from the wicked, because they take refuge in him.
Divine Mercy in My Soul, 1146, “Write: before I come as a just Judge, I first open wide the door of My mercy. He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice.”
Please everyone, receive Jesus recent, year 2000, gifts of Divine Mercy Sunday this coming April 16th!
Jesus does get us.
We all need to get Him.
This frail life we are given, is more than flesh, more than personal fun and pride.
Love and kindness are the health of ones heart.
We can choose the future of a loving heart, and maybe we can hangout with Jesus, which will bring eternal happiness to your soul.✝️
Exactly, Jesus would get their attention(drawing a line in the sand) then teach the compassionate lesson, then say “Sin No More.”
Our culture is so conflicted and distanced from God anything that may have some benefit seems justifiable. If the Catholic Church makes murmurs insofar as impact what else is there?
Addressed numerous times by this writer and others is the deleterious influence of an all power usurping papacy leaving bishops with the proverbial lack of clothes. It’s up to them [their personal responsibility is enormous] to take the manly, faithful initiative and assert their authority to preach the Gospel and admonish, to proclaim the truth, in season and out of season and to challenge any authority that presumes it can silence their Apostolic witness to Christ’s revelation.
Praise you Holy Spirit!
People today who are far from Jesus or who have been told he’s irrelevant, or worse, may be attracted by such hooks as these commercials. I praise the effort to draw people in. Who knows how many in Jesus’ time came to him incrementally rather than in a single encounter. The arts, broadly speaking, can do this too, even when not strictly Christian or Catholic.
Dear Brothers in Christ,
If the following comment is deemed worthy to be published, kindly carry it under the pseudonym of (Paterimon).
I am a retired (95) Catholic Melkite Priest of the Diocese of Newton.
I can end you my address if you like to.
Thank you:
It seems to me that the campaign is based on “Jesus Seminar”: they first set up a convenient paradigm that renders Jesus an appealing prophet who exclusively teaches love and mercy, unconditionally pardons the adulteress, and sends her home in peace to continue her dissolute life. As for “sin no more”, it’s clearly a posterior interpolation added by the Church to control people!
Nobody is excluded. “Woe to you…hypocrites: You lock the kingdom of heaven before human beings. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter” and the awesome rest is conveniently ignored because it’s simply not in the logic of the Gospel!
In the long run, Jesus is emptied of all divine attributes so he can fit into the Great Reset.
It is unfortunate, and unfortunately telling, that comments regarding the “He Gets Us” campaign in both America Magazine and here, are majority negative. The article itself was straightforwrd, and for that I give thanks!