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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Weird and wonderful relics
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Conchubhar
Apprentice
# 17602
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Posted
I was recently told by a rather high priest that at the church of St. Mary Magdalene in Oxford on the high altar they had two relics. The first was a tiny piece of hem that had been torn off by the apostles at the assumption BVM as they tried to hold her body down! The second reliquary was completely empty and was believed to hold a breath of the Holy Spirit.
I wonder if any other shipmates know of any bizarre, preposterous or just plain weird relics?
[deleted duplicate thread]
[ 17. March 2013, 08:27: Message edited by: seasick ]
Posts: 7 | From: Alton | Registered: Mar 2013
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american piskie
Shipmate
# 593
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Posted
Just setting off there now, so I'll have a look.
But it seems to me a fantasy on the same level as the Great Crypt (actually the city's former Ladies lavatories). There are a couple of reliquaries either side of the altar, with nicely labelled fragments of this and that, but nothing notable.
Posts: 356 | From: Oxford, England, UK | Registered: Jun 2001
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
There is s church in County Cork that during Medieval times had the Virgin Mary's knitting. Needless to say, Cromwell burnt it.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Now where was it that was supposed to have one of the stones that Our Lord said would cry out if they could (Lk 19:40)?
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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american piskie
Shipmate
# 593
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Posted
Of course he was.
Plenty of Holy Spirit today, but fresh, not tinned.
And the relics out of sight for passiontide, behind their rather twee little embroidered covers.
Posts: 356 | From: Oxford, England, UK | Registered: Jun 2001
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anne
Shipmate
# 73
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Posted
One of our churches was dedicated to Thomas the Martyr when it was built but after a little local difficulty around the reformation* it has been known as St Thomas the Apostle since the Civil War. I have dreams of a sort of conceptual reliquary, which would contain the Doubts of Thomas the Apostle and the Turbulence of Thomas Beckett.
Anne
* Church damaged during the Prayer Book rebellion, Vicar hung for taking 'wrong' side during Prayer Book rebellion, Church destroyed during Civil War, rebuilt during Commonwealth. That kind of difficulty.
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‘I would have given the Church my head, my hand, my heart. She would not have them. She did not know what to do with them. She told me to go back and do crochet' Florence Nightingale
Posts: 338 | From: Devon | Registered: May 2001
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american piskie
Shipmate
# 593
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Posted
The late George Macleod was a master of the almost-relic. From London he obtained for Iona "Was this the bell that called Oliver Cromwell to prayer?" and from the enormous hoard of nails buried at the Roman Camp at Inchtuthil he obtained enough to furnish many a church with "Was it with nails like these that Our Blessed Lord was crucified?"
Posts: 356 | From: Oxford, England, UK | Registered: Jun 2001
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
There is s church in County Cork that during Medieval times had the Virgin Mary's knitting. Needless to say, Cromwell burnt it.
He burned Out Lady's knitting? Jesus's little woolly bootees? The bounder!
So ... were we wanting weird? (Warning to the faint-stomached: not so much weird as seriously flaming creepy. And there are ones like it all over Bavaria.)
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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dj_ordinaire
Host
# 4643
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Posted
Well indeed, St. Ambrose isn't looking so well either...
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Flinging wide the gates...
Posts: 10335 | From: Hanging in the balance of the reality of man | Registered: Jun 2003
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
Returning to the OP: What was he high on?
They have no such relics at Mary Mags.
(But my avatar is a photo of a rather nice one somewhere in Ireland)
[ 17. March 2013, 19:54: Message edited by: Amos ]
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
Posts: 7667 | From: Summerisle | Registered: May 2001
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Qoheleth.
Semi-Sagacious One
# 9265
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Posted
Welcome to the Ship, Conchubhar. Eccles is an excellent place to make your first post. No doubt a host will be along shortly with the customary preliminaries.
Is your Alton in Staffs or Hants?
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The Benedictine Community at Alton Abbey offers a friendly, personal service for the exclusive supply of Rosa Mystica incense.
Posts: 2532 | From: the radiator of life | Registered: Apr 2005
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Conchubhar
Apprentice
# 17602
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Posted
The priest is a bit of an odd one, he comes and concelebrates at our church most Sundays and we are quite low down the candle and yet after mass he always makes references to how high he is, making comments such as: ASMS is too low for me or that the poem 'ultra-catholic' describes him.
Posts: 7 | From: Alton | Registered: Mar 2013
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Conchubhar
Apprentice
# 17602
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Posted
It's Aton, Hampshire and my usual place is Alton Abbey and I see you advertise their incense and wafer breads. Thank you for the welcome.
Posts: 7 | From: Alton | Registered: Mar 2013
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Qoheleth.
Semi-Sagacious One
# 9265
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Posted
I'm an oblate of Alton, so we may have met ...
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The Benedictine Community at Alton Abbey offers a friendly, personal service for the exclusive supply of Rosa Mystica incense.
Posts: 2532 | From: the radiator of life | Registered: Apr 2005
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Posted by Amos:
quote:
(But my avatar is a photo of a rather nice one somewhere in Ireland)
A potato?
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif) St Oliver Plunkett
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
Posts: 7667 | From: Summerisle | Registered: May 2001
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
My father frequently brags about seeing one of Jesus' diapers in the Cathedral of the Assumption in Dubrovnik, Croatia. It doesn't get much more international than that.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
So ... were we wanting weird? (Warning to the faint-stomached: not so much weird as seriously flaming creepy. And there are ones like it all over Bavaria.)
Hell a skeleton is nothing. It's the mummified ones that are freaky.
We have a piece of the True Cross™ at our parish, or at least the Pope (forget which) said so when he gave it to whoever gave it to whoever gave it to whoever gave it to us. Was it Voltaire that said if you added up all the pieces of the True Cross it would need a forest's worth of trees to make them? Or something like that.
A lot of the relics that used to be in Constantinople were scattered to the four winds in the Fourth Crusade, and then many were destroyed in the Reformation (as were a third of the books in Britain).
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Conchubhar
Apprentice
# 17602
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Posted
The same priest that informed me of the relics that started this thread said that to say that there were enough pieces of the true cross to make a ship was only a cruel Protestant taunt. Apparently all known fragments were gathered together in the late 19th century and there was only enough to make up the board at the top above Jesus' head
Posts: 7 | From: Alton | Registered: Mar 2013
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
My two favs are Jesus' umbilical cord and his foreskin.
I thought they had lost all of the foreskins claimed as relics.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
My two favs are Jesus' umbilical cord and his foreskin.
I thought they had lost all of the foreskins claimed as relics.
No, but they've all been locked away on papal direction, under Piux IX, if memory serves me well.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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Leaf
Shipmate
# 14169
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Conchubhar:
The second reliquary was completely empty and was believed to hold a breath of the Holy Spirit.
This is awesome: Schroedinger's reliquary.
I also really liked the conceptual reliquary.
Posts: 2786 | From: the electrical field | Registered: Oct 2008
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
Then there's always the weird and wonderful relics who volunteer to celebrate at weekday Mass, God bless 'em. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
I'm sure it's on the Ship I've heard of the "relic" of the BVM's morningsickness and some of her milk.
Amos, I always thought your avatar was just some nice abstraction of colors...till you said that, and naturally, I googled for a larger image. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
RE: the OP, at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Thomas Edison's last breath is on display in a bottle. (Edison and Ford were good friends.) Am I the only one, though, who read the OP and thought, "The Breath of God has a breath of its own, and someone thought they could capture it?" That's a nice way to explain an empty reliquary, I guess.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Alas, the relic offered to Lichfield Cathedral by the immortal Francis Wagstaffe (see p75) appears not to have been accepted for the veneration of the faithful.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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seasick
...over the edge
# 48
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Alas, the relic offered to Lichfield Cathedral by the immortal Francis Wagstaffe (see p75) appears not to have been accepted for the veneration of the faithful.
I thought it was a sin to sell relics?
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We believe there is, and always was, in every Christian Church, ... an outward priesthood, ordained by Jesus Christ, and an outward sacrifice offered therein. - John Wesley
Posts: 5769 | From: A world of my own | Registered: May 2001
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
More of a sin than it is to tease a Bishop...
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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The Scrumpmeister
Ship’s Taverner
# 5638
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Conchubhar:
The same priest that informed me of the relics that started this thread said that to say that there were enough pieces of the true cross to make a ship was only a cruel Protestant taunt. Apparently all known fragments were gathered together in the late 19th century and there was only enough to make up the board at the top above Jesus' head
I don't doubt that those are the origins of the saying but the suggestion that various churches not in communion and regarding each other with suspicion at best would arrange a get-together to measure their relics sounds rather like a desperate attempt at claiming legitimacy. It would seem strange enough if the relics were all in possession of one church body.
[ 18. March 2013, 09:55: Message edited by: The Scrumpmeister ]
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If Christ is not fully human, humankind is not fully saved. - St John of Saint-Denis
Posts: 14741 | From: Greater Manchester, UK | Registered: Mar 2004
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Conchubhar:
The same priest that informed me of the relics that started this thread said that to say that there were enough pieces of the true cross to make a ship was only a cruel Protestant taunt. Apparently all known fragments were gathered together in the late 19th century and there was only enough to make up the board at the top above Jesus' head
The phrase dates from the middle ages when it seemed every parish church had one. By the 19th century, the fashion had died down and I'm sure thr Church was regulating it a bit better as well.
And of course, your priest's apocryphal tale of getting all the pieces together in one place sounds both ridiculous and impossible.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Evelyn Waugh states, in the preface to his novel Helena, that some C19 scholar whose name I forget went to the trouble of measuring all the then known supposed fragments of the True Cross, presumably in situ: this sounds a bit more plausible.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Fëanor
Shipmate
# 14514
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Evelyn Waugh states, in the preface to his novel Helena, that some C19 scholar whose name I forget went to the trouble of measuring all the then known supposed fragments of the True Cross, presumably in situ: this sounds a bit more plausible.
After consulting various places on the internet, I believe the scholar was Charles Rohault de Fleury.
Posts: 177 | From: Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell | Registered: Jan 2009
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Thank you.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
They have no...relics at Mary Mags.
Have you seen some of the old ladies of both genders and all ages who worship there?
I've been on placement at Mary Mags, if that is what you're asking. The old people at Mary Mags were a formidable bunch in my day, and no doubt still are. I'd speak respectfully of them if I were you.
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
Posts: 7667 | From: Summerisle | Registered: May 2001
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Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433
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Posted
Neither rare nor at one level wonderful, but my 2 x former parish in OZ (wankydilla to shippies) had a relic, I dunno, a fibre of a toenail or something, of St Theresa d'Avila. Incongruous only because I'm not sure what she was doing in the Australian outback. Unsurprising because she has I think dissipated herself around the world 14 times over.
Can't compete with the breath of the holy sprit though. Tautology and all.
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shameless self promotion - because I think it's worth it
and mayhap this too: http://broken-moments.blogspot.co.nz/
Posts: 18917 | From: "Central" is all they call it | Registered: Sep 2004
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Devils Advocate
Shipmate
# 16484
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Posted
We have a relic supposedly of St John The Baptist in our shack. It lives in a reliquary set in a "throne" on the West side of the organ loft balustrade. Needless to say we have NO paperwork for it and it is never brought down to chancel level for veneration.
I believe one can't sell a relic only the Reliquary in which it lives
As far as gruesome relics are concerned the head of St Oliver Plunkett which lives in St Peter's Church in Drogheda has to be up there with the top ten.
I believe someone once played a joke on Father Hope-Patten and placed a feather in an empty reliquary with a notice on it saying " Feather from the Archangel Gabriel" Needless to say he was far from amused
[ 18. March 2013, 22:37: Message edited by: Devils Advocate ]
Posts: 97 | From: Lincs | Registered: Jun 2011
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
They ever recover the heart of poor St Whoosit in Ireland?
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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