Pope Benedict XVI has approved Brother André, the founding cleric of St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal, for sainthood.It's neato and worth seeing if you're in Montreal.
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Brother André was laid to rest there when he died in 1937 at the age of 91. His heart is stored in a reliquary inside the Oratory and is an object of contemplation for pilgrims.
Are we to take it that you've contemplated the heart relic yourself?
ReplyDelete~
Yeah. It's in a jar and it is his heart. Holy!
ReplyDeleteThe building's nice too, and has a fine gift shop with lots of 3D images.
His heart is stored in a reliquary inside the Oratory
ReplyDeleteFirst thing I thought when I read this: "I wonder if someone has tried to steal it." Wikipedia says yes!
There was a fine lady called Mary
ReplyDeleteWho visited said Reliquary
She'd traveled quite far
To see the heart in a jar
But sadly, it was quite scary
While standing inside the Oratory
I saw a heart in a jar, it was gory
I thought "now that's really weird"
'Cause it seemed quite revered
There must be some more to the story
First thing I thought when I read this: "I wonder if someone has tried to steal it."
ReplyDeleteFirst thing I thought was "does that mean his heart is literally in his mouth?"
As I remember the heart was replaced with a salted pineapple, which, it turns out, had even more miraculous powers and remains in place. The real heart was gifted to the Zombie community who take turns in wearing it on a sleeve. Their little joke.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's why zombeez worship Jay Leno.
ReplyDeleteThey can't actually shamble forward enough to perform humor, but they appreciate the efforts.
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Jar: Mason (clear) or clay (opaque)?
ReplyDeleteFormaldehyde? How do they keep his love/heart from rotting to the core?
ReplyDeleteThe jar wasn't that impressive in itself. It was like the jar they kept Frankenstein's monster's brain in. Or rather some other guy's brain until Frankenstein's hunchback stole the brain to put into Frankenstein's monster.
ReplyDeleteFrankenstein had a monster AND a hunchback and I am jealous.
Captcha says grave.
So was the jar labelled "Abnormal Heart -- Do Not Use"?
ReplyDelete"I wonder if someone has tried to steal it."
ReplyDeletePresumably in order to consume it, in the tradition of Rev. Buckland and the heart of Louis XIV.
Because it is bitten, and because it is my heart.
So now I've got this idea for Frankensaint, a monster composed of anatomical relics, who, when raised, DOES GOD'S WILL AND CAN'T BE STOPPED.
ReplyDeleteEnd is pitchforks and torches as well.
ReplyDeletefoundling..fondling?..there's a letter difference.ju saying
ReplyDeleteSo now I've got this idea for Frankensaint, a monster composed of anatomical relics, who, when raised, DOES GOD'S WILL AND CAN'T BE STOPPED.
ReplyDeleteSomebody needs to pay you money so some GOOD movies finally get made.
A kind of zombie / religious cross-over. Well, to the extent that the central Jesus story isn't a zombie / religious cross-over.
ReplyDeleteSubby, the Breitbart studios would surely chuck dome cash at that
ReplyDeleteThere is the downside that this BEING could have at least 17 prepuces, so getting into serious teratological territory.
ReplyDeleteHis heart is stored in a reliquary inside the Oratory and is an object of contemplation for pilgrims.
ReplyDeleteThey had a priest of Huitzilopochtli do the heart-removal.
I saw the tongue of St. Anthony on display in the Cathedral of Padua- gives new meaning to kissing a relic. It's probable that the Holy Prepuce has gone "missing" (a foreskin holocaust!) because kissing the foreskin led to some... uh... doctrinal controversies.
Of course, contemplating the leathery tongue of St. Anthony in the Cathedral, one is stuck by the fact that someone had to make the decision to cut it out.
"Brother Theodosius, take him to the lopitorium, he's going to be a heavy hagiographical hitter!"
BBBB's link is hilarious.
ReplyDelete"Most of the Holy Prepuces were lost or destroyed during the iconoclasm of the Reformation and the French Revolution. In Calcata, the reliquary containing the Holy Foreskin was paraded through the streets of this Italian village as recently as 1983 on the Feast of the Circumcision. The practice ended, however, when thieves stole the jewel-encrusted case, contents and all."
Lost... or destroyed... or OBTAINED BY THE DOCTOR'S AGENTS.
"Brother Theodosius, take him to the lopitorium, he's going to be a heavy hagiographical hitter!"
In the case of Saint Livinus, they fed the tongue to dogs, showing a lack of forethought and reducing the amount of salvageable material.
It appears that one lab is moving towards the Divinyl Solution! Conveniently located in Thundra's environs.
ReplyDeleteSeems the Americans excel at Frankensaint development...
ReplyDeleteThe Reliquary Tourism guide in Substance's last link explains the Anthony-Tongue business. Seems it was self-selecting:
ReplyDeleteWhere: Basilica of St. Anthony, Padua, Italy. When St. Anthony's coffin was opened 30 years after his disposition, most of his body was found to have returned to dust but for his tongue, which remained fresh as a sign of his gift of preaching. It is this that is kept at the Basilica.
I guess the whole "Rest In Peace" concept doesn't apply to saints, huh?
ReplyDeleteHere lies Saint Radziwell, may he rest, well, not exactly in peace, since every couple of decades we're gonna open this sucker up and poke at the poor bastard, taking parts and describing the corrupted remains in great detail.
Hey, it's their goddam cult, if they wanna fuck around with the dead as part of the whole worship thing, I got nothing to say one way or another. But it does strike one as, well, INTERESTING how many of the practices of catholics closely parallel behaviors we tend to think of as perverse...