A Morbid Connection to Heaven:
An Investigation of Relics & The Modern Need for Them
Chapter Two: Relics Today and Their Defense
In
the movie Singing in the Rain there is a moment near the
beginning in which fan-girls start attacking the lead male character
and rip his clothing in an attempt to have a piece of him to keep
as a memento. It is interesting to note that a culture filled
with autograph hounds and with those who become star struck whenever
a celebrity comes by can consider the Catholic veneration of relics a
joke. A lovely dish is just a lovely dish, but one owned by your
grandmother is a special treasure. A pocket-watch gotten at a pawn
stop is just a time piece, but one given to you by a grandfather is
one you dread losing and would mourn if that were to happen. People
are willing to pay a ridiculous amount of money for an article of
clothing worn by some famous person, faint at Beatles concerts, and
engage in riotous behavior to get their hands on an article of
clothing or some other item belonging to a new pop icon; but when a
relic of Saint Catherine is mentioned, people snicker.
Especially
today, in a world filled with atheists and misinformed Catholics, the
snickering gets louder. In the year 2009, some of the relics
of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
went on tour around England, even going to a correctional facility,
after visiting forty other countries. Many English pilgrims came to
see and touch the remains of the French saint. Simon Jenkins, a self
proclaimed “Dawkins-ite”, wrote an article concerning the saint's
visit to his country. Jenkins finds the whole event rather
distasteful, crediting the frenzy that the faithful display towards
the relics as “brainwashing of unreason.” But Jenkins decided to
be gracious towards the less rational of his fellow man and take up
the mantle of courtesy, the same he “would show a Hindu elephant
worshiper or a Polynesian medicine man.” Such a mantle is hard to
see in the rest of his article, which consists of a rather snarky
description of how the relics came across the English channel and
what the faithful would do once in reach of the relics. He blatantly
states that relics are nothing more then “jujus, [or] religious
placebos for the credulous classes” while most rational people
“find them ghoulish.”
One
of the members of the committee which arranged for Saint Thérèse to
visit England, Father Stephen Wang, quickly responded to Jenkin's
article. Wang quickly goes into an explanation of why so many come
to the relics. People “come to pray; to find inspiration in the
life of an extraordinary woman; to deepen their sense of community
and belong; to connect with a person they love”;
basically people are coming because they are seeking spiritual help.
Wang explicitly states that relics are not, as Jenkins says, 'jujus',
which are magical charms. A common misconception about relics held
by non-Catholics and some Catholics is that relics possess magical
powers; there is a supernatural aspect to relics, but there is no
'hocus-pocus' involved with them. The relics are part of the
physical aspect of the faith, it is “not just about abstract
spiritual truths.”
The very act of the Incarnation confirms this – people were able
to touch the Word of God and interact with Him. It is of little
wonder then that Christianity developed with tangible ways to express
the faith; this includes church architecture, polyphonic music and
statues alongside of relics.
Today,
relics are found in several different states in general. The first
is relics lost and forgotten in a museum, where people gawk and
wonder why there is a skull in a glided box. Next, the relics become
a tourist attraction, like Pope Blessed John XXIII; the Swiss guards
usher people along as they take pictures of a partially decomposed
man under an altar. The last state, which is probably the most
common, is that of relics in some form of a storage room, whether it
be in a church or in a museum's back closet; they are hidden away out
of sight, and the only way to see them is if one knows somebody with
connections to the relics. But above all these states is that in
every altar in the churches there has to be a relic, inside according
to Cannon Law.
There
are three classes of sacred relics depending on the closeness of the
object to the saint. The first class are instruments of the Passion
of Christ or a part of a saint's body. The relics found in church
altars are first class, most likely one of a martyr. Then, the
second class relics is a piece of the saint's clothing or something
used often by the saint, such as the letters written by Saint Teresa
of Ávila.
Lastly, third class relics are objects touched to first class
relics.
To
venerate the relics of the saints is a profession of belief in
several doctrines of the Catholic faith. The first of these is the
belief in everlasting life for those who have obediently witnessed to
Christ and the Holy Gospel whilst on earth. Next is the truth of the
resurrection of the body of all persons on the last day, which
relates to the doctrine of the splendor of the human body and the
respect which all should show toward the bodies of both the living
and the deceased. Also, there is the belief in the special
intercessory power which the saints enjoy in heaven because of their
intimate relationship with God. Last is the truth of our closeness
to the saints because of our connection with the communion of saints,
since we are all part of the same Church.
To
understand how to venerate relics, one must understand the difference
between latria,
dulia and hyper-dulia. Latria is sacrificial in
character, and may be offered only to God. Catholics offer other
degrees of reverence to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to the Saints;
these non-sacrificial types of reverence are called hyper-dulia
and dulia,
respectively. Hyper-dulia is essentially a heightened degree
of dulia provided only to the Blessed Virgin since she is the
revered Mother of God.
End of Part One.
To Be Continued............
(Copyright: Belongs to the Wanderer)
(If interested in research please contact me.)
To Be Continued............
(Copyright: Belongs to the Wanderer)
(If interested in research please contact me.)
