Interesting Relics?

[Hoonbaba]

Hi guys,

Now that I've become a bit familiar with relics, I'm just curious to know: What are the most fascinating relics?

Is it true that apostle Peter's bones still exist somewhere? I thought that was just a mere myth.

-Jason

 

[VOW]

To Hoonbaba:

For ME, the most fascinating is the Shroud of Turin. There's an excellent book out by two investigators of the Shroud, who presented a most convincing case! After the first Carbon-14 results were so disappointing, I refused to lose faith; there is simply too much evidence to dismiss it as a fraud. Then, about a year or so ago, Time Magazine did a story on the Shroud, and now scientists are finding fault with the way the Carbon-14 testing was done....those results are highly questionable!


Peace be with you,
~VOW

 

[Wolseley]

The bones of what are thought to be St. Peter are underneath the main altar of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Excavations uncovered a 1st-century tomb with an inscription in Latin reading, "Peter is inside"; the skeleton appeared to be that of an older man, with the ankles and feet missing. This would fit in with early Christian accounts of Peter being crucified upside-down, since the Romans would simply hack the body away from the feet to dispose of the corpse, and not have to worry about pulling spikes out of the wood with crowbars. (Jesus was removed from His cross by fellow Jews, remember---so they took more care with His Body.)

One of the more interesting relics (or at least I always thought so) is the Holy Grail (the cup Jesus drank from at the Last Supper), which is kept in the cathedral of Valencia, Spain; it is a plain wooden cup, about the size of a small cereal bowl. So much for the big bronze one in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Back in the days when I was involved with the Franciscan Order, I was familiar with the chapel at Mt. Calvary, Wisconsin, where there is a big Franciscan friary with a reliquiary (a display case for relics). One of the relics was the skull of St. Benedict, which seemed to be the skull of a very old man, with few teeth. (Benedict was nearly sixty when he died.) I could never figure out why Benedict's skull was in a Franciscan friary instead of a Benedictine monastery.

 

[Hoonbaba]

Originally posted by VOW
To Hoonbaba:

For ME, the most fascinating is the Shroud of Turin. There's an excellent book out by two investigators of the Shroud, who presented a most convincing case! After the first Carbon-14 results were so disappointing, I refused to lose faith; there is simply too much evidence to dismiss it as a fraud. Then, about a year or so ago, Time Magazine did a story on the Shroud, and now scientists are finding fault with the way the Carbon-14 testing was done....those results are highly questionable!


Peace be with you,
~VOW

Uhm..what's the shroud of turin? I have no idea what this is about. Care to share? =)

-Jason

 

[Hoonbaba]

Originally posted by Wolseley
The bones of what are thought to be St. Peter are underneath the main altar of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Excavations uncovered a 1st-century tomb with an inscription in Latin reading, "Peter is inside"; the skeleton appeared to be that of an older man, with the ankles and feet missing. This would fit in with early Christian accounts of Peter being crucified upside-down, since the Romans would simply hack the body away from the feet to dispose of the corpse, and not have to worry about pulling spikes out of the wood with crowbars. (Jesus was removed from His cross by fellow Jews, remember---so they took more care with His Body.)

One of the more interesting relics (or at least I always thought so) is the Holy Grail (the cup Jesus drank from at the Last Supper), which is kept in the cathedral of Valencia, Spain; it is a plain wooden cup, about the size of a small cereal bowl. So much for the big bronze one in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

How can we be sure the Holy Grail is truly the holy grail? I can understand Peter's corpse, since you shared some evidence, but how can we know if the Holy Grail is the real thing?

Also, wasn't the Holy Grail (in the Indiana Jones movie) the old wooden cup?

-Jason

 

[Avila]

Oh, honey!! The Shroud is fairly well-known. Try this website. It's the official one for the shroud.

http://sindone.torino.chiesacattolica.it/en/welcome.htm

 

[Hoonbaba]

Originally posted by Avila
Oh, honey!! The Shroud is fairly well-known. Try this website. It's the official one for the shroud.

http://sindone.torino.chiesacattolica.it/en/welcome.htm

Uhm...I have a confession to make: I have no idea what I'm looking at! LOL

I don't see any 'about the shroud' link or anything like that.

Uhm..can someone please explain what this is all about?? LOL =)

Thank you very much!

-Jason

 

[Catchup]

Hit the link given... then on the first page hit the Scientific route... next page at the bottom hit shroud.

LOVE

 

[patriarch]

FYI, if you happen to see a relic of a saint encased in a small metal reliquary with a glass cover, turn it over and see what it says. If it says "ex ossibus," it is from the bones. These are known as first class relics.

If it says "ex indumentis," it is from the clothing.

In general, the more recent the relic, the more apt it is to be genuine, since there was a great traffic in spurious relics during the Middle Ages, e.g. a vial of the Blessed Mother's milk!

Also, I doubt very much that at the resurrection from the dead, St. Benedict will stop by a Franciscan monastery in Wisconsin to pick up his head.

There is a a town in Italy, however, that does have a vial of the blood of St. Januarius, martyr, which liquefies every year on his feast.

Siena in Italy does have the actual head of St. Catherine of Siena in a reliquary, something which I devoutly hope never to see .


Lee

 

[VOW]

To Hoonbaba:

The Shroud of Turin is considered to be the burial cloth that covered the body of Jesus as He lay in the tomb. It's a long strip of woven linen, not wound around Him like the Egyptian mummies, but laid lengthwise from His feet, up His back, over the top of His head, and then down across His body back to His feet. There is an image of a Man on the cloth, front and back, and it is evident that this Man was crucified, and suffered the same wounds attributed to Christ. The piercings on the forehead and scalp from the crown of thorns, the marks on the back and shoulders from the scourging, the bruised knees from falling, abrasions across the shoulders from carrying the Cross, and of course the piercings in the ankles and wrists, along with the wound in the side. Even the blood drips are indicative of a crucifixion, showing that the victim had to raise and lower His body to breathe.

The weave of the fabric is common to that particular era in Palestine, and there is residue from native flowering plants which bloom during Passover.

The most REMARKABLE feature, in my mind, is the actual image itself. It is not painted on, nor drawn. The bloodstains have tested to be human blood, but there is NO explanation for the image. The writers of the book "The Shroud of Turin" have made a wild supposition: at the Resurrection, Jesus was infused with an almost atomic-blast type surge of energy, which SCORCHED the image onto the cloth. Amazing! The more advanced we become in science, the more advanced the evidence is which God reveals to us!

Another point made is that the image is a PHOTO NEGATIVE. When it is photographed and the negative is viewed, it appears like a black and white picture of the body.

Also, the parts of the body which actually touched the cloth are shown as darker in color than ones further away. Using this principle, the authors had the image digitized, and then used a computer to create a three-dimensional model of the body. I held my breath at looking at the picture they took of this model, for I felt like I was gazing upon the face of my Savior! The "topo" of the model also showed an astounding detail: there was a bas-relief image of ROMAN COINS covering the eyes of the body, and old, old custom used to close the eyes of the dead.

I believe in the Shroud of Turin!


Peace be with you,
~VOW

 

[Trento]

www.pixelworks.com.ph/shroud/crucifixion.htm#nailed

 

[Hoonbaba]

Originally posted by patriarch
FYI, if you happen to see a relic of a saint encased in a small metal reliquary with a glass cover, turn it over and see what it says. If it says "ex ossibus," it is from the bones. These are known as first class relics.

If it says "ex indumentis," it is from the clothing.

In general, the more recent the relic, the more apt it is to be genuine, since there was a great traffic in spurious relics during the Middle Ages, e.g. a vial of the Blessed Mother's milk!

Also, I doubt very much that at the resurrection from the dead, St. Benedict will stop by a Franciscan monastery in Wisconsin to pick up his head.

There is a a town in Italy, however, that does have a vial of the blood of St. Januarius, martyr, which liquefies every year on his feast.

Siena in Italy does have the actual head of St. Catherine of Siena in a reliquary, something which I devoutly hope never to see .


Lee

How can we be sure these relics are real or not? What if they're frauds or something?

-Jason

 

[Hoonbaba]

Originally posted by VOW
To Hoonbaba:

The Shroud of Turin is considered to be the burial cloth that covered the body of Jesus as He lay in the tomb. It's a long strip of woven linen, not wound around Him like the Egyptian mummies, but laid lengthwise from His feet, up His back, over the top of His head, and then down across His body back to His feet. There is an image of a Man on the cloth, front and back, and it is evident that this Man was crucified, and suffered the same wounds attributed to Christ. The piercings on the forehead and scalp from the crown of thorns, the marks on the back and shoulders from the scourging, the bruised knees from falling, abrasions across the shoulders from carrying the Cross, and of course the piercings in the ankles and wrists, along with the wound in the side. Even the blood drips are indicative of a crucifixion, showing that the victim had to raise and lower His body to breathe.

The weave of the fabric is common to that particular era in Palestine, and there is residue from native flowering plants which bloom during Passover.

The most REMARKABLE feature, in my mind, is the actual image itself. It is not painted on, nor drawn. The bloodstains have tested to be human blood, but there is NO explanation for the image. The writers of the book "The Shroud of Turin" have made a wild supposition: at the Resurrection, Jesus was infused with an almost atomic-blast type surge of energy, which SCORCHED the image onto the cloth. Amazing! The more advanced we become in science, the more advanced the evidence is which God reveals to us!

Another point made is that the image is a PHOTO NEGATIVE. When it is photographed and the negative is viewed, it appears like a black and white picture of the body.

Also, the parts of the body which actually touched the cloth are shown as darker in color than ones further away. Using this principle, the authors had the image digitized, and then used a computer to create a three-dimensional model of the body. I held my breath at looking at the picture they took of this model, for I felt like I was gazing upon the face of my Savior! The "topo" of the model also showed an astounding detail: there was a bas-relief image of ROMAN COINS covering the eyes of the body, and old, old custom used to close the eyes of the dead.

I believe in the Shroud of Turin!


Peace be with you,
~VOW

This is amazing!! Thank you for sharing!! =)

God bless!

-Jason

 

[AlphaPhi]

I would like to point out that the Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was a small wooden cup, not a gold goblet or bronze cup. The Nazis thought it was a gold goblet, and it killed them. Junior Jones picked the right one -- the small wooden goblet.

 

[jukesk9]

I don't know if you'd consider this a relic or not but the body of St. Catherine Leboure fascinates me. She died like in the late 1800s and her body has yet to decay......

 

[VOW]

To Hoonbaba:

There was a great black market in relics during the Middle Ages. Every person wanted a personal "saintly keepsake" much like people carry a rabbit's foot today. If you were vowing to tell the truth, you'd be asked to kiss a little casket containing the finger of Saint Somebody.

Later on, cynics noted that Saint Somebody must have had many hands, like the Indian God with all the waving arms, to accommodate the fingers that were attributed to him.

You'll find con artists selling bits of the True Cross, vials of Mary's Milk (I'd sure like to hear the story on how they collected THAT!) and other incredible noteworthies.

Many times, though, especially in the cases of martyrs, the faithful claimed their bodies, and eventually when a church was built, the remains were enshrined there. I myself have seen enshrined bones of Boniface in the Dom (Cathedral) in Fulda, Germany. Some of the martyrs there were so crushed in battle, the facial bones were destroyed, so only the back of the skull is displayed.

How do you know if it's true or fake? Faith!


Peace be with you,
~VOW

 

[Wolseley]

Basically, Hoonbaba, belief in these old relics comes down to faith. You either believe in them, or you don't. It doesn't affect your salvation either way, so long as you don't go off the deep end and start contradicting the teaching of the Church on relics and start saying that you have to believe in The Feather From Gabriel's Wing in order to be saved, or some such nonsense.

Some relics are much better confirmed than others; some are more historically reliable than others. Again, if you're interested, I would recommend Joan Carroll Cruz's book called Relics.

 

[Hoonbaba]

Originally posted by VOW
To Hoonbaba:

There was a great black market in relics during the Middle Ages. Every person wanted a personal "saintly keepsake" much like people carry a rabbit's foot today. If you were vowing to tell the truth, you'd be asked to kiss a little casket containing the finger of Saint Somebody.

But isn't a rabbit's foot a mere 'good luck charm' type of superstition?

Correct me if I'm wrong but I would look at relics as an object of sentimental value, almost like the constitution of the United States or something along those lines. I personally don't believe in 'good luck charms' if anyone were to consider a relic as such. I can understand how God may use these relics to heal people, and to remind us of the reality of saints who existed in the past. So in that aspect it must be really encouraging, especially that shroud!!! But it seems as if some people are placing too much value on these relics, or that it can become ridiculously easy to place too much value on it.

-Jason

 

[VOW]

To Hoonbaba:

You've hit the nail on the head with your observations. The Church obviously has no intention of worshipping relics, but some misguided people have elevated them to that level on their own. Superstitious folks in the Middle Ages indeed considered them to be "good luck charms," able to ward off evil and/or bring fortune to those lucky enough to own it.

Along the same lines, the Church does not condone "worshipping Saints," but again, some misguided Catholics actually DO consider Saints, or Mary to be on a level equal with God. There are those who believe if you "do a novena," your "wish" comes true.

A relic or a statue is a reminder, a visible object upon which you can focus while you lose yourself in prayer to God.


Peace be with you,
~VOW

 

[Avila]

But isn't a rabbit's foot a mere 'good luck charm' type of superstition?

Correct me if I'm wrong but I would look at relics as an object of sentimental value, almost like the constitution of the United States or something along those lines. I personally don't believe in 'good luck charms' if anyone were to consider a relic as such. I can understand how God may use these relics to heal people, and to remind us of the reality of saints who existed in the past. So in that aspect it must be really encouraging, especially that shroud!!! But it seems as if some people are placing too much value on these relics, or that it can become ridiculously easy to place too much value on it.

I think you've got it! That is what Wols was talking about.

BTW, A&E (maybe TLC too) does a fascinating feature on the Shroud every year around Easter. If you ever get a chance, it is worth the hour or so to watch it. It will give you chills.