Relics during the Summer: An Introduction to a big topic

Left to Right: William Conners, Leo Vaccaro, Carmen Croce, working with the relics in preparation for an exhibit that  Carmen Croce is organizing at Saint Joseph's University.

We've been busy the past few months.  One of our big projects includes identifying and displaying the large relic collection from the church of the Gesu.  In late July, we met with an expert on Philadelphia Catholicism, Carmen Croce, who is putting together an exhibit concerning relics.  He plans to include some relics from the Church of the Gesu and is coordinating their restoration.

For those of you unaware of what relics are, they are physical objects that bear some relation to a saint, Jesus himself, or the Holy Family.  All relics should have paperwork representing their provenance, which in the Gesu's example tend to come in certificate form (and according to this interesting website, that tends to be the norm http://www.ichrusa.com/saintsalive/cert.htm).  More important relics tend to be actual body parts of saints - be it a piece of a bone (ex ossibus) - less important ones are from clothing that the saint wore - say from Joseph's robe (ex pallio).  For our purposes, we have relics that are important for many different reasons.  One relic that we have at the Gesu is a cut branch from the Garden of Gethsemane, and although it bears little religious significance considering that the branch was cut in the 19th instead of the 1st century; it is historically important because it still has a piece of its packaging label indicating that a parishioner most likely sent it specifically to Villiger over 100 years ago.

Which leads us to a mystery for modern Catholics: Why was there such an emphasis on or devotion to relics in this American, urban parish of the 19th century, while that emphasis has not found its way to the modern American parish?

Many sources concerning the early church of the Gesu point towards Burchard Villiger's affinity for relics.  Special mention of it is made in the biography written about Villiger by John J. Ryan, S.J.  Relics are also featured in the 1938 publication of the Jubilee of the Gesu's construction, which quotes an article from 1903 that the Church published exclaiming that "There is scarcely a day in the year for which we have not one, two or even more relics of Saints who are honored in the ecclesiastical calendar on that particular day, and those who come to visit the church will each day find them exposed for the veneration of the faithful in a monstrance on the wooden ledge beneath the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes" (Page 111).  Works that appear to be in Villiger's own hand, which are preserved in the Villiger Archives, also attest to how Villiger organized the relics by date - seemingly so that they could be displayed on the feast day of the saint that they were representing.

The issue of Villiger and relics is by no means a small one and the modern Villiger Archives has a treasure trove of relics, including Latin certificates dating from 1730.

Relics and their certificates.  Notice the branch from the Garden of Gethsemane on the right.

A common question that I get asked (especially by students) when I tell the story of the relics is: Are they real?  And of course, the history major in me has much to say about that question alone.  It seems to be something that cannot be answered easily.  For instance, why would we assume that a relic is not real if it came from a saint who was alive when (or died shortly before) the certificate was signed?  Probably the most obvious example of this is the relic we have of St. John Neumann, the bishop of Philadelphia.  Wouldn't it be unlikely that the relic would not be truly from him?

One relic that the Gesu owns, resting in a beautiful painted reliquary, is a thread from the robe of St. Francis Assisi.  For anything to survive from a man who met Pope Innocent III in 1209 is remarkable, so one might assume that this was merely a fabrication, but considering that a robe still does exist that purportedly belonged to the great medieval saint (http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/1634ee/) maybe that it isn't impossible ...

Relics going out on loan for the exhibit were matched with their proper certificates and carefully packaged.

As for relics of the Holy Family ... it might be impossible to say that they are from them.  But they could still be very old, and I always offer up the story of the True Cross as related in the Catholic Encyclopedia http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04517a.htm.  Although there are many churches that claim to have pieces of the True Cross, perhaps most of the Churches have at least really very old pieces.  How old?  Assuming that the True Cross on which Christ was crucified on was destroyed in the 1st century, by the 4th century, there is already another one claiming to be the True Cross.  Fragments of that 4th century cross were held as important relics and passed down through the years.

All of this discussion leads back to the main mystery: Why?  Why was it so important?  It is difficult to say exactly what they thought of it in the 19th century.  Villiger did not give an explicit reason (that has survived and been discovered) as to why he was so invested in relics.  Implicitly, he emphasized the feast days of saints.  Perhaps he wanted to remind his parishioners of the day-to-day holiness of those great men and women; of their earthly struggles and spiritual gains; of how they were from every region of the world and served real historical lives.  Furthermore, as we can see from the Golden Jubilee book from the Gesu (quoted earlier in this post), the veneration of saints is something that indicates Catholic identity: "Indifference towards the Saints and a disregard of their relics are suggestive of feebleness of faith, and the chilling influence of a Protestant atmosphere" (Page 111).  So, perhaps the institution of relics was yet another way for marginalized Catholics to create their own space - as per Ann Taves' work The Household of Faith: Roman Catholic Devotions in Mid-Ninetheenth-Century America (Page 124).

Please submit all relic questions you have, the iron is hot!  Also, thank you to Bill Avington for taking the group picture at the top of the page!