Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: (Vigil): Pat Barder, (Anniv).
11.00: Esther Tierney, (Anniv).
6.30: Michael Folan, (Anniv).

As I Was Saying...

I have just returned from a (short!) visit to Italy. As you know, that wonderful country contains many fascinating features, some sublime, some ridiculous. But there is no more macabre location on this earth than the Capuchin Church of the Immaculate Conception (1645), on the famous Via Veneto, universally known as 'The Bone Church'. In the 17th century, thousands of Capuchin friars were exhumed from their graves and transferred to this church. The Church and crypt now contains the remains of 4,000 friars buried between 1500-1870. The walls are decorated with these human bones arranged in elaborate fashion, making this a strange 'work of art'.

Some of the skeletons are still intact and they hang from the walls draped in their Franciscan habits; but for the most part, individual bones are used to create elaborate ornamental designs: cross, floral, arch, triangle and circle, as well as forming objects, such as chandleries. A large clock is composed of vertebrae, foot bones and finger bones. The single hour hand represents the idea that time has no beginning or end.

Entrance is by donation, the door manned by a habited (living!) Capuchin monk. This bizarre display dates from a period of a rich and creative cult for their dead. The great spiritual masters meditated and preached with a skull in hand. A plaque in one of the chapels reads, in three languages, "What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be."

Having studied at close quarters these 'intimations of mortality', I then went south to Naples to witness an equally bizarre phenomenon: the 'liquefaction' of the blood of San Gennario. (See article below). The liquefaction of the substance that the faithful believe to be his blood takes place three times a year, in December, May and on September 19, coinciding with his feast day. It was first recorded in 1389.

It is said that if the blood miracle does not happen then the City of Naples will be left without protection. For example, in 1980 the blood did not liquefy before the earthquake that took 2,000 lives. Of course, with the prevalence of the 'Swine Flu' epidemic, the practice took on a greater than usual significance this year. I arrived in Naples Cathedral two days after the 'miracle'. Even then, despite 'Swine Flu', long queues still formed to kiss the relic.

We shouldn't really look down our disapproving noses at the Romans or the Neapolitans. You will recall that, when the relics of St Therese of Lisieux came to Ireland some few years ago, the people turned out in their thousands to pray (or to stare?). British Catholics reacted in an identical manner to the relics of the same saint this week.

Christians don't necessarily agree on the importance of relics. Yet, visiting the grave of a loved one (knowing 'who' rather than 'what' lies below) is a comforting practice encouraged by all Christian churches. And for some people relics are simply the next step - another way of celebrating and following the example of those who have gone before. Relics may be mere grisly human remains at one level; but, on another level, they can be encouraging and, over centuries, profoundly significant to both communities and individuals.

-Dick Lyng

REMEMBERING THE PAPAL VISIT

(Thirty years ago this week, John Paul II visted Ireland, the first and only Pope ever to do so. That visit was the highwatermark of Irish Catholicism, and at the same time the beginning of its ebb. That point needs to be made, but not strained. As Mary Kenny wrote, 'What churl among us would rain on the parade of those for whom it was a wonderful, joyful and never-to-be-repeated occasion?' Below journalist and author Kevin Myers remembers the day with some fondness and a little wry humour!)

I'm not a Catholic; I haven't been one for many years. I went along to the Phoenix Park to keep my mother company, but anyone who participated in that day participated in something wonderful. It was a truly miraculous day; the spirits of the people were beyond description.

Dublin was extraordinarily well organised, more efficiently governed than at any time in its history. The Catholic Church was then at the height of its glory and power, and everything was arranged superbly.

When the Pope's 747 came over the Park accompanied by the Air Corps, there was a cry that went up from the crowd that was unlike anything I've experienced. It wasn't the cry of a simple, backward people; it was the cry of an intelligent people who were behaving according to some very simple rules of community. It was a transfixing occasion; everyone was bound in unity at that moment. It wasn't a religious occasion in the sense of solemnity, but it was a very religious occasion in the sense the early Christians would have understood.

The next day, I had to go up to the Park to write up the aftermath of the event for the Irish Times. The shocking thing was that you could see the progress of the departing crowd by the litter trail that covered the road, about one foot deep.

I remember seeing a man in a Mercedes driving along beside all the Portaloos while his children ran into the toilets, stealing the lavatory paper. He cruised along like a Fagin-type figure with the doors open, and the children running backwards and forwards, hurling lavatory rolls in. I suppose that's why he had a Mercedes: he had initiative and nerve.

-KEVIN MYERS is a journalist.

SWINE FLUE AND SAINTS

The scene was familiar on the feast day of the patron saint of Naples, St. Januarius: the packed cathedral; the procession with the saint's relics, including two glass vials said to contain his clotted blood; the mounting anticipation during the solemn ceremony, culminating in an explosion of applause at the archbishop's joyful announcement: "I give you the good news, the blood has liquefied."

But on Saturday a singular announcement colored the annual ritual that has enthralled Neapolitans since the 14th century. "You can kiss the reliquary," Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, the city's archbishop, told the excited crowd. "Know that every proper hygienic sanitary precaution has been taken."

Anxiety over swine flu has been particularly acute in this southern Italian city. When a 51-year-old man infected with the virus died in Naples this month, only a handful of relatives attended the funeral and the pallbearers wore sanitary masks for fear of contagion.

And two weeks ago, Neapolitan transit workers went on strike, saying they were afraid of catching swine flu from dirty city buses.

Initially, in response to flu worries, local church officials mulled over measures forbidding worshippers from kissing the reliquary containing what they believe is the blood of San Gennaro, as he is known here, a local bishop martyred in 305. But that risked upsetting the followers of this popular saint who Neapolitans believe protects their city.

After some debate, Cardinal Sepe convened a committee of experts to determine the risk of contagiousness from kissing the sealed glass bauble that encases the vials with the substance. One of the few times kissing was forbidden altogether was during a cholera outbreak in 1973.

Last week, the experts approved the devotional practice. So until next Sunday, when the relics are returned to the fortified safe where they are kept during the year, worshippers in Naples can share a close encounter with their patron saint. After each kiss, a disinfected handkerchief will be passed over the glass of the reliquary, a measure that had already been in practice for years.

Theologically, the Vatican has never accepted the liquefaction as an official miracle, preferring to refer to it as an inexplicable phenomenon.

"Since the 15th century, a popular belief holds that if the blood does not liquefy or only partially liquefies it bodes badly for the city," Professor Luongo said. "People poke fun at this, but predictions are common to many religions. It is part of popular religiosity."

But faith, in the case of Saint Januarius, seems to be trumping science. "Some people have been kissing San Gennaro for years, and if they hadn't been able to do so this year they might have panicked, immediately thinking of an epidemic, which isn't the case," Professor Piazza said. "In the long run, the disadvantages outweighed the advantages of a ban."

-International Herald Tribune, Monday, September 21, 2009.

Top

Valid HTML 4.01 Strict