My Aunt Tibia, though not a Catholic, went to visit Rome and quite frankly she was taken aback by all the relics.  She was particularly amazed to see whole skeletons under altars in St. Peter’s Basilica.  She says it’s morbid and besides we shouldn't be worshiping saints and statues and old bones anyway.

Please comment.

Your friend,

Mrs. Kay Daver

Tell your aunt Tibia to read the Bible more closely.

There is the famous story in the second Book of Kings in which the bones of Elisha raise a dead man to life. (2Kings 13:21) and again we read in the 34th Psalm that the bones of the righteous are precious to God.  If God honors the bones of the righteous shouldn't we?

Where does your aunt get the idea that we shouldn't honor the saints?

God does not have an ego problem.  Honor paid to your children is a credit paid to you.  This is true also of your Heavenly Father.  People who say “Jesus only” don’t understand the familial nature of the oneness of God.  The unity of God is a solidarity not a solitude.

Jesus prayed “Father, that all may one as you and I are one.” (Jn 17:21)   Jesus wanted Peter to love John and Thomas to love Judas and so on.  The reverence we pay to the saints fulfills the express will of Jesus at the last supper.  We honor our older brothers and sister in the family of faith and imitate them as they imitated Christ.  The Catholic doctrine of the communion of saints is a precious biblical truth and a keystone of  the faith. 

Seen in that light, relics are not grotesque, but beautiful.  To those without faith, relics are reminders of mortality.  To those who truly believe, as St. Paul says in the letter to the Romans, (Rm 10:9) that God raised Jesus from the dead, the bones of the saints are reminders of future resurrection, not of death.

These things are precious to us because they are reminders of the victory of God’s chosen ones, His saints.  The custom of the veneration of the bones and other relics of the saints goes back to the earliest days of the Christianity. W e often read that the faithful gathered up the bones of the martyrs and gave them proper burial because of their belief in the sacredness of the human body and the hope of  resurrection. 

It was common to celebrate Mass on the very tombs of the martyrs.  From that practice, the church developed the custom of putting a relic in the altar stone in the middle of each altar.  This custom persists to this day and is a reminder that the altar is more than a table and that Mass is more than a holy meal.  You wouldn't put a relic in your dining room table because it is simply that: a table.  The altar is more than just a table and the Mass more than just a meal.  It is a sacrifice, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. 

The sacrifices of the saints and the martyrs are united with the sacrifice of Calvary, and we unite our sacrifice to theirs.  Why is sacrifice so important?  Because the Bible tells us that love is always and only what we give away.  In loving God and our brothers we give away our very selves and by dying to ourselves and the world we find eternal life and true love. 

The relics of the saints are beautiful because they remind us that Jesus said, “There is no greater love than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”  The relics of the saints and particularly the martyrs, those who died for the Christ and His Gospel are reminders of the resurrection and the victory of true love.

Yours sincerely,

Rev. Know-It-All