WHY RELICS?

 WHY RELICS?

            After my parents died and their children were emptying the house to prepare it for sale, I remember wanting to take home a few items by which to remember them.  I was a little surprised at this feeling because I am not sentimental.  But besides the set of glassware with the initial “B” – which logically became mine since my sisters have different last names and my brother didn’t want to ship them – I wanted something else.  Today, I have two pictures from my parents’ home which I hang in whatever rectory I am living.  One is a large canvas of swans which used to hang in their living room, and the other is a painting of a street in Montmartre, Paris which my parents bought when my father was stationed in France during the Korean War.    

            It is a normal human thing to want keepsakes.  We would like to touch or at least look at a hat that Abraham Lincoln wore or a flag that Betsy Ross sewed.  In the same way, we value things connected to saints.  I was awed when I touched the chair on which St. John Vianney used to sit for twelve to fourteen hours a day hearing confessions in his little church in Ars-sur-Forman (no cushion – wow!).  But I was even more awed when I celebrated Mass on the altar over which his incorrupt body is encased.  To be near the body conveyed a strong sense of the saint’s presence.  For the same reason people visit the graves of their loved ones.

The first Christians in Rome used to celebrate the Eucharist over the graves of a martyr.  The pope’s altar in the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome is directly over the grave of St. Peter, who was crucified upside down for his testimony to Christ.  The same is true of the altar in the Basilica of St. Paul-Outside-the-Walls, where the apostle to the Gentiles is buried.  The tradition in the early Church of celebrating Mass near the burial place of a martyr originated the practice of placing a relic of a saint in or under the main altar of a Catholic church (today it is not required but is considered laudable).  There is a biblical warrant for this practice: “I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered because of the witness they bore to the word of God” (Revelation 6:9). 

Relics are mentioned in the Bible.  The bones of Joseph are carried with them by the Hebrews when they flee Egypt.  The bones of the prophet Elijah were touched to a dead person who then came back to life.  The prophet Elisha used Elijah’s mantel to part water in the same way that Moses famously used a rod to part the Red Sea.  In the Gospels a woman touches Jesus’ garment and she is healed.  The Acts of the Apostles records that Christians in Ephesus used handkerchiefs and cloths touched to the skin of St. Paul to heal the sick.  Relics, of course, do not work miracles; rather, God uses them to incite faith, which is an important condition for a miracle, as is demonstrated when Jesus visits his hometown and cannot perform many miracles because of the Nazarenes’ disbelief (cf. Mark 6:5-6).  A relic is not a talisman with a mysterious power; rather, it reminds believers that the one to whose body it belonged lived by faith and love, and he or she intercedes for us. 

You may have noticed that seven relics were recently placed in the narthex of the church.  The one in the largest reliquary is of the Holy Cross (it came with official documentation).  The other relics are of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Anthony of Padua, St. John Neumann, St. Therese of the Child Jesus, and a chip from the coffin of Blessed Miguel Agustín Pro.  The relics of the saints are first-class relics since they are a piece of the actual body of the saint.  The wood chip is a third-class relic since it was touched to the body of a martyr.  A second-class relic is usually from clothing which the saint wore or some object he or she used. 

Relics are reminders of our communion with the saints.  They encourage us to live as they did.  Just as those pictures from my parent’s house in some way convey their presence, even more so the relics of holy men and women bring them near to us.  Moreover, they remind us that all the saints will one day be resurrected when Christ returns in glory.  Their bodies will be reconstituted and united with their souls, and they will be assumed into heaven in the completeness of their humanity.  Hopefully, we will rise with them!   

Father Scott