An Encounter with Holiness
Travelling on pilgrimage is a common practice in most religious faiths. It is hoped that our visits to those holy sites will enrich and renew us spiritually. By stepping out of our daily routine we can perhaps more easily connect ourselves with God.
One of the best-known places of pilgrimage is Lourdes: a little town in the Pyrenees where it is believed that Mary appeared to a local girl - Bernadette Soubirous, or St Bernadette as we now call her - on a number of occasions in 1858. It has been a place of pilgrimage, prayer, and miraculous healing ever since, and more than 5 million people now make the pilgrimage to Lourdes every year. Many are of the Christian faith, but it is also visited by those of other faiths and of none.
As you know, the Covid-19 pandemic made it difficult, if not impossible, for people to travel on pilgrimage. I know many are still anxious about travelling nationally and internationally at present. However, this autumn, Lourdes has come to the UK in the form of the relics (remains) of St Bernadette, which are being brought to various cathedrals - including St Marie’s in Sheffield - for the very first time. Believers from around the UK will be taking part in local pilgrimages to the cathedrals in which the relics are being hosted. The tour is attracting active believers and curious onlookers alike, creating focal points for prayer and healing across the country.
As Cardinal Vincent Nichols says, “The pilgrimage St Bernadette’s relics will undertake this autumn offers us a welcome opportunity to bear active witness to our Faith, joining with one another across our many communities to encounter God’s love and find spiritual, emotional, and psychological healing and renewal.” Please pray with us for all of those who are participating in the pilgrimage: that each of them will encounter God in a new and deeper way.
Why are relics special to so many Catholics? In the Bible, there are several moments in which God chooses to work miracles through physical objects related to His servants. In the Old Testament, for example, we see a dead man come back to life when his body touches the bones of the prophet Elisha. In the Acts of the Apostles, we even have ‘handkerchiefs and aprons’ touched by St Paul being carried away to sick people to bring them healing. The writer of the Acts, St Luke, is clear though, that God is the source of the power in these items, and we believe the same today when God chooses to work through the relics of his Saints and Martyrs.
I know that some struggle with the idea of the veneration of relics, but I think that there are three key elements worth clarifying, to help with our understanding.
Firstly, when Catholics speak of venerating relics, it is important to be clear that, while this is a high form of honour, it is very distinct from adoration, which is the true worship we give only to God. As St Luke makes clear with the handkerchief of St Paul, when we honour a physical object linked to someone who is now in Heaven, we are honouring God, the source of all holiness.
Secondly, it is rooted in our natural human instinct to treat with care and reverence anything connected with those we have loved and lost a while in death. I am sure that many of us have keepsakes of our deceased loved ones, perhaps of no value to others, but of huge value to us; this attachment we feel is similar to the devotion some Catholics have to items related to Saints.
The third element that helps us to understand the veneration of relics is that being in their presence can help us feel close to these holy individuals and connect us with the community of the faithful - on Earth and in Heaven. When we feel more connected to this ‘great cloud of witnesses’, it can be a real encouragement to our desire for holiness, helping us to ‘run with perseverance’.
So, relics are a tool that help us draw closer to God, through being a physical sign of God’s holiness and grace, through sanctifying our natural instinct to treasure items that remind us of loved ones, and through visibly connecting us with God’s holy Church - in Heaven and on Earth.
But, perhaps the final word on the significance of the veneration of relics should go to Pope Emeritus Benedict, who expresses it far better than I ever could:
“By inviting us to venerate the mortal remains of the martyrs and saints, the Church does not forget that, in the end, these are indeed just human bones, but they are bones that belonged to individuals touched by the transcendent power of God. The relics of the saints are traces of that invisible but real presence which sheds light upon the shadows of the world and reveals the Kingdom of Heaven in our midst.”
Ralph Heskett
Bishop of Hallam
Question for reflection
Can you think of any physical objects or items that help you to draw closer to Jesus?