{"id":3214,"date":"2007-04-15T12:59:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-15T12:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/04\/of-relics-and-the-resurrection\/"},"modified":"2007-04-15T12:59:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-15T12:59:00","slug":"of-relics-and-the-resurrection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/04\/of-relics-and-the-resurrection.html","title":{"rendered":"Of Relics and the Resurrection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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\"\"<\/a> In the reliquary on the left you can see the finger bone of St Thomas the Apostle. On this day when the gospel recounts the story of his challenge to \u2018put my fingers in the nail prints\u2019 it\u2019s sweet to see that the finger in question has been preserved as an everlasting memorial to the victory of resurrection over doubt.\n
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The relic (along with a portion from the pillar where Christ was flogged in the center and two thorns from the crown of thorns on the right) are kept in the Church of Sante Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome. <\/a>Along with these relics you can see the cross beam of the good thief\u2019s cross, three large sections of the cross of Christ and the \u2018titulus crucis\u2019\u2013the title board that hung over Jesus\u2019 head. (Here\u2019s a picture gallery)<\/a><\/div>\n
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\u201cCome now father,\u201d I hear you protest, \u201d shall we believe in all the relics? What good are they? Don\u2019t they lend to superstition? Haven\u2019t we moved on from all that?<\/div>\n
First let me recount the tale of these particuar relics. In the early fourth century the emporer Constantine\u2019s mother Helena went to Jerusalem to look for the cross of Christ. As the story goes, the Christians showed her the relics, and when she asked for them they made her promise not to remove them from the Holy Land. She agreed, and then proceeded to load a ship with soil from Jerusalem onto which she loaded the relics, thus keeping her promise not to remove them from the Holy Land. Upon arriving at Rome she put the soil down in the grounds of her imperial palace and built a chapel to house the relics. The site of the palace is now the Church of Sante Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome. Archeologists have not only discovered the remains of an imperial palace there, but they have also discovered that the soil under the church is from Jerusalem.<\/div>\n
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So far, so good. Recently a Protestant scholar called Thiede did some work on the titulus crucis<\/em>. The full story of it can be found here<\/a>. It makes a fascinating account, and even more credible as the work was done by a Protestant with no particular Catholic axe to grind.<\/div>\n
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If the relics are authentic, so what? Well, during this Eastertide we do well to remember that our faith is physical. We believe in the incarnation\u2013God\u2019s Son really did take flesh of a woman at a particular place in time. The faith continues to impact the physical realm. It\u2019s all about flesh and blood and fingers and toes and hammers and nails and hands and feet and bread and wine and water and smoke and physical stuff. The relics remind us of this in all their gory simplicity. Yes, here is an arm bone of a saint. There is an incorrupt body for which we have no explanation. Here is a thorn that may have pierced the savior\u2019s brow. There is a cloth that they wrapped him in. Maybe that mysterious imprint is the mark of his resurrection\u2013still there as 2,000 year old photographic evidence.<\/div>\n
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Shall we believe it all? We are right to be suitably sceptical, but not right to be totally skeptical. <\/div>\n
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For my money, I\u2019d rather err on the side of gullibility. On the last day I\u2019d rather be blamed for believing too much than too little. Was I too credulous? I trust that will be forgiven. Was I too child like in my wonder and awe? I thought that was one of the kingdom\u2019s entry requirements. <\/div>\n
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Was I a credulous fool? Ah well, count me among the credulous fools then.<\/div>\n
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The whole business of relics delights me because it stands this rational world on its head. \u201cCome now Father, we know that it is the spiritual<\/em> which counts most. Bones of saints and nails from the true cross don\u2019t really matter.\u201d <\/div>\n
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Really? I thought that saying it was only the spiritual which matters was a little heresy called Manicheanism. Surely because of the incarnation and resurrection we say that matter does<\/em> matter, and if it matters, then relics\u2013gory and gruesome and literal as they may be\u2013remind us of this fact. <\/div>\n
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It also reminds me that what I do with my own body matters for better or for worse. Catholics believe that the physical impacts the spiritual and vice versa. If I sin with my body my sould is affected. If I fast with my body my soul is affected.<\/div>\n
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My oh my, it turns out that it all matters very much, and for this reason, when we wonder at the resurrection let us all abandon doubt and fall down with St Thomas and say, \u201cMy Lord and My God.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the reliquary on the left you can see the finger bone of St Thomas the Apostle. On this day when the gospel recounts the story of his challenge to \u2018put my fingers in the nail prints\u2019 it\u2019s sweet to see that the finger in question has been preserved as an everlasting memorial to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nOf Relics and the Resurrection<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In the reliquary on the left you can see the finger bone of St Thomas the Apostle. 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