Relics

A relic is what remains of a saint, his body or his bones, or an object that belonged to him. The Church venerates them in memory of the saint whose trace they keep, and of God who made him his dwelling.

God acts through matter

From the Old Testament, God acts through the matter bound to his servants. At the touch of the bones of the prophet Elisha, a dead man returns to life. “when it had touched the bones of Eliseus, the man came to life and stood upon his feet.” 2 Kings 13:21 The Incarnation brings this logic to its summit: God himself takes a body, and the touch of his flesh heals. A woman is restored to health for having only touched the hem of his garment. “If I shall touch only his garment, I shall be healed.” Matthew 9:21 Many did the same: “they besought him that they might touch but the hem of his garment. And as many as touched, were made whole.” Matthew 14:36 The Church of the Apostles knows the same grace: the sick were carried out along Peter’s path so that his shadow might cover them. “they brought forth the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that, when Peter came, his shadow at the least might overshadow any of them.” Acts 5:15 From this same logic flow the sacraments and the veneration of relics: the visible becomes the channel of the invisible.

The body, temple of the Spirit

This veneration rests on what the body of a saint is. During his life, it was the temple of the Spirit. “your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you.” 1 Corinthians 6:19 This body bore grace and was its instrument: by it the saint prayed, served and helped the poor, and the martyr gave his witness even to blood. “your members as instruments of justice unto God.” Romans 6:13 Sanctified by grace and united to Christ, this body is promised to the resurrection: “Who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory.” Philippians 3:21 The Church honours it as what carried a friend of God, and awaits that it be rendered to it in glory on the last day.

The three classes of relics

The Church distinguishes three classes of relics. First-class relics are the body of the saint or its fragments; when it is a notable part, such as the head or a limb, they are called insignes. Second-class relics are the objects the saint wore or used during his life, his garments or the instruments of his martyrdom. Third-class relics are objects, most often a cloth, brought into contact with a first-class relic; Christian antiquity called them brandea. Scripture gives the example of this: the cloths that had touched Paul healed the sick. “there were brought from his body to the sick, handkerchiefs and aprons: and the diseases departed from them.” Acts 19:11-12

Under the altar

Very early, the Church celebrated the Eucharist on the tombs of the martyrs, then placed their relics under the altar or in the altar stone. This gesture has a foundation: the Apocalypse shows the martyrs closest to the sacrifice of heaven. “I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God.” Revelation 6:9 The saint who gave his life for Christ thus rests beside the altar where his sacrifice is renewed.

The witness of the Church

This veneration goes back to the first centuries. After the martyrdom of Saint Polycarp, around 155, the faithful gathered his bones, “more precious than gold”, to celebrate each year the day of his birth into heaven. Later, Saint Jerome answered those who mocked this cult: we do not adore relics, we honour them in honour of him whose martyrs they are. The Church fixed its doctrine. The Second Council of Nicaea, in 787, condemning iconoclasm, taught that the honour rendered to an image or a relic rises to the one it represents, and it judged the bond between the altar and the martyrs so close that it prescribed that no church be consecrated without relics laid within it. The Council of Trent, at its twenty-fifth session, gathered this teaching: the bodies of the saints, living members of Christ and temples of the Spirit, whom God will raise, are to be honoured by the faithful, and through them God grants his benefits.

The honour rises to God

All the honour given to a relic is addressed in the end to God. The Church distinguishes two attitudes easily confused: adoration, which the Greek names latreia (λατρεία), reserved to God alone; and veneration, douleia (δουλεία), granted to the saints and their relics. The relic, being an object, receives a relative veneration: the honour does not stop at the bone or the cloth, it passes to the saint, and through him to God. To venerate a relic is to honour the saint whose trace it keeps, and through him to celebrate God who sanctified him, rather than to adore matter. All power belongs to God alone: it is he who acts, freely, when he wills, through the memory and the intercession of the saint, and he willed, from Scripture onward, to do so through what touches his friends. Hence the two safeguards the Church has always set: against superstition, which would lend matter a power of its own, and against trafficking, for to sell a relic or trade in it is forbidden her; one does not put a price on what belongs to God and his saints. The Church honours in the relic the trace of a life given to God.