Relics

Your mom’s old cookie jar. Your grandfather’s watch. Having something that belonged to someone we loved can be a comfort.

….then there are relics.

Wiki tells us that a religious relic is the physical remains (or personal effects) of a saint, preserved for veneration. Which sounds reasonable, until you see what sort of remains/effects they’re talking about. In the Catholic Church, relics include the heads, hands, blood, heart, tongue, jaw and other body parts of saints, most of whom died utterly grisly deaths. Somehow, someone saved some of the breast milk of the Virgin Mary. In addition to pieces of the cross Christ died on, there’s his crown of thorns, various cloths that wiped his face or that he was laid out on, and the actual lance that was used to pierce his side. Most incredibly, relics include Christ’s diapers and “the Holy Prepuce” - his foreskin.

The skull of St Catherine

The arm of St Francis

The jawbone of At Anthony

The footprint of Mohammed

The tooth of Buddha

I grew up with this nonsense, and only came to sanity gradually. Reading the Medieval Bodies book, and researching additional information and images, makes me fully realize the absolute lunacy of it all. How can anyone ever think that some stained piece of cloth holds even a drop of Mary’s breast milk? I want to scream “people can’t possibly be that stupid!” but, of course, current politics prove how wrong I am.

My sister Claire just reminded me about scapulars. We were supposed to wear them everyday:

A scapular consisted of two small pieces of cloth, with religious images/ text, joined by two ribbons. One square is on the chest the second square drops down the back. After my mother died, I created a reliquary, using her old bras, which each had a scapular pinned inside. The Middle Ages….right there in my mother’s underwear drawer:

Catholics weren’t the only lunatics. After Buddha was cremated, his ashes - and one or more teeth - were saved. Below is the architrave of the Siege of Kushinara, which was part of the war over the Buddha's Relics. Yes, a war over who gets to keep some ashes and an old tooth.

Islam has a rich history of the veneration of relics, especially of those attributed to the prophet Muhammad. However, these seem a bit more…normal? Hairs from his beard, a footprint, some clothes.

The Catholic Church has tried to move past past some of the more lurid relics. It’s lost, it was stolen, we don’t talk about that anymore. Yet when I was in Sicily at Easter one year, I saw people still lining up to kiss the feet of Christ’s statue. People still carried an effigy of his crucified body through the streets. I felt like an anthropologist coming home to study the culture she was raised in long ago. As Paul Simon sang “When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school It's a wonder I can think at all”

One more thing: my big one woman show opens in Tulsa soon. The 108 Contemporary Gallery has been doing everything humanly possible to make it a great exhibition……and I will be here in New Jersey, quarantining from Covid.

This too shall pass.

Stay well. Stay sane. See you next week.