Posted on 02/01/2011 12:52:59 PM PST by RnMomof7
A vial containing blood drawn from Pope John Paul II shortly before he died will be installed as a relic in a Polish church soon after his beatification later this year, an official said Monday. Piotr Sionko, the spokesman for the John Paul II Center, said the vial will be encased in crystal and built into the altar of a church in the southern city of Krakow that is opening in May. The exact date of the opening is not yet known, but it should be shortly after John Paul's beatification at the Vatican on May 1........... "It was the cardinal's proposal," Sionko said. "He is of the opinion that this is the most precious relic of John Paul II and should be the focal point of the church." .........
"The idea of displaying the pope's relics has met with some reservations, even inside the Catholic Church. "The tradition of relics comes from medieval practices of teaching the Bible through images and symbols," said the Rev. Krzysztof Madel, a Jesuit priest in Nowy Sacz who has publicly questioned the usefulness of displaying John Paul's blood. "But in today's rationalized world the message should rather come through teaching about someone's life." After John Paul's death, some Polish officials said they hoped John Paul's heart would be removed from his body and returned to his homeland for burial. However, church officials dismissed any possibility of dismembering the body, saying the age had passed for that practice. Dziwisz said Friday that he has always been against dividing of the body, but that "relics have always existed and will always exist."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
“I would think the blood of Christ should be the focal point of any church. But then, I’m not Catholic.”
I eat His body and drink His blood every Sunday and often during the week.
From your link:
Relic means "remains." Relics are venerated on the premise of "beneficent contagion" in which the supernatural graces received by a Saint do not die with him but remain in the body after death and can be received by those who come into close proximity with the "eyes of faith." GOD’s work was done through the lives of the Saint's and so His work will continue after their deaths, if GOD wills it!
Do Popes and other people who think they are somehow holy enough to be venerated after death keep their fingernail and toenail clippings in a jar for later veneration?
Wouldn't you think it incumbent upon these holy people like JPII to save their toenail clippings and maybe their haircut clippings and all that hair in the bottom of the tub after they shower so that Catholics all over the world could later share in a piece of their body and receive the benefit contagion of their supernatural graces?
If these holy people's bodies contain their supernatural graces after death, surely their toenails and tub hair should be preserved for future generations to receive these supernatural graces and "benefit contagion".
Don't you think?
1Co 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
God believes that the bodies of all Christians are temples of the Holy Ghost to be eternally glorified...In which case, your Saints are no more Saintly than the average Christian...Is your body not the temple of the Holy Spirit???
Sounds right to me PM.. This was one of the unscripitual practices that Luther pointed out as nothing more than a fund raiser..
How is the physical remains..or the blood of deceased man Holy?
To be holy means to be set aside by God ..not men
Catholics believe that the bodies of the saints as formerly temples of the Holy Ghost are destined hereafter to be eternally glorified. The practice of venerating relics is as old as the church itself. When St. John the Baptist was martyred, his remains were recovered by his followers and taken to be buried in a safe place where they could be honored. After St. Polycarp was burned at the stake for his religious views his burned bones were gathered and placed in a tomb where his followers gathered to celebrate Mass and the life of their martyred pastor. As Saint Jerome declared, "We do not worship, we do not adore, for fear that we should bow down to the creature rather than to the creator, but we venerate the relics of the martyrs in order the better to adore him whose martyrs they are."
Lucky charms.. and little more...
The body of the Church, that is the communion of all Christians, is the temple of the Holy Spirit. To cite one passage from Paul that addresses the community of Christians as one spiritual body and construe it to mean something else is at best disingenuous.
Catholicism is a faith of all of the senses, smells and bells if you will. The presence of a relic gives us a very real and fully tangible encounter with God, something not found in Protestantism.
Relic means "remains." Relics are venerated on the premise of "beneficent contagion" in which the supernatural graces received by a Saint do not die with him but remain in the body after death and can be received by those who come into close proximity with the "eyes of faith." GOD’s work was done through the lives of the Saint's and so His work will continue after their deaths, if GOD wills it!
It occurs to me that this is so similar to the "treasury of merit" where the good deeds of one person can be given to another. Grace becomes a commodity that is marketed by authorized agents. It is more than sad. It is degrading the unmerited sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ at Calvary.
Aint no Roman Catholic church there either.. no pope, no priesthood, no relics, no mass, no confessionals,. no statues.. what they had was the scriptures ..
Exactly
Which Scriptures?
I had hoped for, but expected nothing more from you. Unfortunately, your own self imposed excommunication denies you the refuge of ignorance. Your profanity is contemptible.
CCC 2120 Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God. Sacrilege is a grave sin especially when committed against the Eucharist, for in this sacrament the true Body of Christ is made substantially present for us.
Do you know if you die wearing a scapula you go right to heaven, do not stop at purgatory..just go right to Peter..
Was Luther infallible? If not, why do you put trust in him, and in his Bible, rather than the true Bible, and the true Church?
About this Book of the Revelation of John, I leave everyone free to hold his own opinions. I would not have anyone bound to my opinion or judgment. I say what I feel. I miss more than one thing in this book, and it makes me consider it to be neither apostolic nor prophetic. First and foremost, the apostles do not deal with visions, but prophesy in clear and plain words, as do Peter and Paul, and Christ in the gospel. For it befits the apostolic office to speak clearly of Christ and his deeds, without images and visions. Moreover there is no prophet in the Old Testament, to say nothing of the New, who deals so exclusively with visions and images. For myself, I think it approximates the Fourth Book of Esdras; I can in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it.Do not hold to traditions of men. Rather, hold to the traditions handed down from the Apostles.Moreover he seems to me to be going much too far when he commends his own book so highly [Revelation 22]—indeed, more than any of the other sacred books do, though they are much more important—and threatens that if anyone takes away anything from it, God will take away from him, etc. Again, they are supposed to be blessed who keep what is written in this book; and yet no one knows what that is, to say nothing of keeping it. This is just the same as if we did not have the book at all. And there are many far better books available for us to keep.
Many of the fathers also rejected this book a long time ago; although St. Jerome, to be sure, refers to it in exalted terms and says that it is above all praise and that there are as many mysteries in it as words. Still, Jerome cannot prove this at all, and his praise at numerous places is too generous.
Finally, let everyone think of it as his own spirit leads him. My spirit cannot accommodate itself to this book. For me this is reason enough not to think highly of it: Christ is neither taught nor known in it. But to teach Christ, this is the thing which an apostle is bound above all else to do; as Christ says in Acts 1[:8], “You shall be my witnesses.” Therefore I stick to the books which present Christ to me clearly and purely.
The 1522 “Preface to the Revelation of St. John” in Luther’s translation of the New Testament. Pages 398-399 in Luther’s Works Volume 35: Word and Sacrament I (ed. E. Theodore Bachmann; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1960).
It is really wise to understand what others believe before one makes a fool out of themselves mocking what they do not know..
Actually Calvinists celebrate Christmas.. we actually do have sacraments.. we do honor Mary
What we do is obey Gods word and not the word of men ...
Voodoo creepiness. eeewww
Except Jesus made clear the wine was a symbol not actual blood
Luk 22:20 Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup [is] the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.
Luk 22:17 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide [it] among yourselves:
Luk 22:18 For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come.
The scriptures are clear to those the really can read them
Sign and symbol
Now are you comparing the blood of a pope to the blood of Christ??
This is a common misunderstanding.
the Church has blessed the appearance of Mary to St. Simon Stock, an early Carmelite, in which she is said to have promised that anyone who remains faithful to the Carmelite vocation until death will be granted the grace of final perseverance. This grace, it must be reminded, does not come from the scapular or any other sacramental; all grace is obtained for us by the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of the Lord. The sacraments mediate this saving grace; sacramentals do not mediate grace but prepare us to receive grace and to cooperate with it. Favors associated with the wearing of the Brown Scapular would be meaningless without the wearer living and dying in a state of grace.
One can read for oneself from the Gospel of John that the doubters in the bread of life discourse doubted because they took Jesus literally and found it offensive and unbelievable that Jesus would offer His own flesh to eat:
John 52-56:
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
_______________________
Because there were so many doubters, Jesus kept repeating the fact that His real flesh was real food and must really be eaten.
Even today there are doubters who reject His words.
______________________
...the Freepers began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”...
Oh I hear ya.....trust me.........I hear ya!
Actually Calvinists celebrate Christmas.. we actually do have sacraments.. we do honor Mary
I believe Calvin was not averse to commemorating Christmas but some of his more .....um....zealous... spiritual progeny certainly objected to it. I think the Puritans adopted a Reformed theology, no? And Christmas was banned in (Presbyterian) Scotland in 1583, was it not? I also have a recollection that the Swiss Calvinists banned all festivals not mentioned in Scripture, including Christmas, yes?
You must be a fun Calvinist... :-)
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