The relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux have arrived in Britain, as they begin a month long tour of the country. They are stopping at numerous churches, monasteries and Cathedrals (including York Minster), with time to take in a hospice for the dying and Wormwood Scrubs prison. They will spend the final week in London, ending with four days in Westminster Cathedral. There are so many articles you can read about the visit – here is a recent one from the Guardian, and from the Telegraph.
Just to get the facts: These are some bones of a young nineteenth century French nun, carried around in an ornate casket for people to venerate. To any hardened secularists it must be baffling; and to many Protestants it will be a confirmation that the Catholic Church is stuck in an age of superstition and medieval heresy. But to Catholics it is the most natural thing in the world to pray to the saints, to visit a shrine, and by extension to go on pilgrimage to those places where the memory and the mortal remains of the saints are preserved. The tour of St Thérèse’s relics is a pilgrimage in reverse – she comes to us and saves us the bother of taking the ferry to Normandy.
I won’t give a big theological explanation of the meaning of relics. There is lots of information on the official website of the Catholic Church. I just want to point to the sound instincts that lie behind the desire to venerate relics and draw closer to the saints. There is a human instinct to honour the dead, to visit their graves, and to believe that their relationship with us is not just a memory but a continuing presence – one that is strengthened by our love and devotion. There is a Christian instinct to ask others to pray for us, especially those who seem close to God, and to believe that these bonds of prayer and love aren’t broken by death. Why would someone pray less or love less just because they had gone to Heaven?
And there is the instinct of all those in need to seek out help wherever they can find it. The overwhelming evidence from history and recent experience is that people’s lives are changed when they come to the relics of a saint with faith and an open heart. So it is no surprise that ‘the poor’ – whether their poverty is material or emotional or spiritual – are flocking to St Thérèse. It’s not desperation; it’s just an honest confession of weakness and need; and an acknowledgement that here is someone who understands, someone who can help. Not someone who takes us away from God, but someone who helps us draw closer to him. Not someone who distracts us from believing in Christ, but someone who helps us to see what that belief really involves, and gives us the spiritual support we need to live it.
There are not many places in our culture outside the confessional or the therapist’s lounge where you can express your deepest human and spiritual needs, and believe that there might be a way of meeting them. How wonderful that for a few weeks now people can go to Thérèse, and in her company go to God, with honest and expectant hearts.
[I gave a retreat about the life and significance of Thérèse this summer. Click here if you want to listen to the talks.]
As a lapsed Catholic, a product of St.Augustine’s Ramsgate, and Downside I am amazed that the Catholic Church involves itself in carting this good Nuns Relics around the country. One reads that Archbishop Murphy O’Connor seemingly encouraged this jaunt, God Bless him and all he speaks for, but there are many others who might consider this escapade has put Catholicism back to the Middle Ages.
The good nun has a very fine Basilica in France, that works wonders for the Local Tourist Trade, but has not the Church anything better to do with its time than this?
One understands that vocations are falling, as is Church attendance, but:
‘Send not to enquire why the bell tolls’
Hi John,
“but there are many others who might consider this escapade has put Catholicism back to the Middle Ages.”
Many things today are called superstition, or ‘quaint’. I have no proof to offer of the efficacy of putting one’s hand against a box containing the remains of a saint. But I would say this, that if a person is willing to take an hour out of their day to visit the mortal remains of someone whose entire life was based around love for others well then I think that is a good use of the person’s time – be they “Catholic, Protestant, or Dissenter” – to think on a good person’s life serves us well.
If I choose to waste an hour watching contestants on Big Brother argue about shoes etc then I am giving over part of my mind and time to considering things which are without any value or worth.
If one can think long and hard on the life of a good person from one’s armchair then so be it, but I rather suspect it is easier to contemplate the deeds of good folk by visiting them.
It doesn’t require faith – just a sense that this was a woman whose entire life was about love and kindness and that most people would like to be a little more like her.
Hence the crowds.
This woman has been a part of my life since I was a child. Thinking of her goodness and her self-sacrifice has made me a better man, of that I am absolutely certain.
You misquoted Donne! –
“Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.”
Not “Why?” but “for whom?”. If I am involved in mankind then I wish it to be through love, surely we all want that? I think Therese would have found that sonnet rather fitting for her own ‘little’ life.
Best,
D.
Even after just day two, the sense of the evangelising power of the visit is strong.
What else should the Church be doing but this?
Surely Joe you must be joking.
Quite well aware of the quote, mine was a purposeful rearrangement there of, to suit the situation.
Have no problem with what others believe or wish to do with their time. It is just that one wonders why the Catholic Church endorses such old Technology, when ‘The Times they are a changing’.
It is a fact of life that Christianity is in apparent decline, and that Islam is in the ascendant. Vocations for the Priesthood have fallen, and Supplicants for both Convent and Monastery are fewer. Vacancies tend to be filled from overseas sources, as the picture in the Times Sept. 17th. seemingly illustrates. Church congregations too benefit from the extended membership of the EEC. That though is a false dawn, for if say a Polish Catholic attends Mass here, he or she no longer does so in Poland.
With respect to others, maybe more people need to stand up in every area of life to be counted. It is helpful to read what others think, and to know who is thinking it. I put a name to my comment and no doubt any who recall it at either of the two establishments first mentioned by me, will evaluate it on the basis of their experience of me, should they recall having had such a thing.
John,
Downside has the head or heart or something of St Oliver Plunkett. When I was at Downside I remember studying Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale – about the corruption involved in relics and indulgences, and more. Brilliant.
But there were, also, genuine relics, and people who were genuine in their respect towards them during the Middle Ages.
We’re under no real obligation to pay attention to relics (if any obligation at all). They’re just (relative to faith in general) a helpful way of getting closer to the saints in some way. We’re both physical and spiritual beings – just like Christ (except that he’s the Son of Man and without sin, of course). We pray to the saints, asking them to pray for us. It’s just another way, ultimately, of getting closer to God (and, of course, the vast majority of our prayer should be directed directly to God, Himself ). Relics are just part of that.
Lastly you write: “back to the Middle Ages” – “back” sounds derogative. Recently, just visited Auschwitz. Wonder what people from the Middle Ages would have thought about that? When I think of the Middle Ages i think – on the positive side – of St Francis of Assisi, Chaucer, Fra Angelico, the construction of the Alhambra in Grenada, and so on.
Just as there is good and bad to the Middle Ages (and the 20th century), so i think the same can be said about our attitude to relics and the saints in general.
Edmond Mahony
“so i think the same can be said about our attitude to relics and the saints in general” – i.e. healthy respect of icons and prayer to saints (petitioning them to pray for us), as opposed to using icons in a corrupt way or giving them or the saints excessive attention (at the cost of our direct prayer to God for example – amongst other possible negative things).