To examine old decayed corpses have always been risky business for the employees of the Vatican so they protect themselves from potential disease and other unknown possible contamination .....yet these corpses and body parts, which will be removed and exhibited.... are then proclaimed "Holy" ????
Jesus said..."Let the dead BURY the dead!"...
"He looks so much like himself..."
"That's exactly how I remember him..."
"He's not there..."
"He looks the same as the last time I saw him..."
None of these seem appropriate.
Regarding the one with the Pope "praying"-- I think he's saying something like "THIS is a little uncomfortable... was HE ever kneeling here?!"
And then people KISS them? And the Catholic church LETS them kiss them?
What about protecting EVERYONE from possible contagions and disease?
GROSS!!!!!!!!!!!
Sending you this in hopes that it will help explain the importance of the remembrance of death."Because of doing this with my family in graveyards they don't bother me. I did not look at death as a family being broke up; but still together in the eternal family that Christ had redeemed us to be part of. I have even thought of wanting a rosary with skulls for the Our Father beads to pray to remember my death and the departed loved ones..." -Father JF (USA)A FAMILY CUSTOM FROM CROATIA
When I was in grammar school my dad's uncles from Croatia and family would go to the graveyard the week before Easter to visit family graves. We carried with us special cakes, food and special wine to spread a table cloth over the family plot and had a nice party eating and talking about the departed loved ones. My special duty was to bury the mass cards under the head stones to remind Grandpa and other family members that we were remembering them and praying to get them out of purgatory. I remember my dad sharing a glass of wine with his dad by pouring it out over the grave.
Then my dad would gather his family around and pray a blessing over us and sprinkle holy water on our heads. Each family did that. Even after all these years I remember part of the prayers. Then the oldest family member would pray:
O Gracious Lord...in this place you give peaceful rest at the price of your life renewing blood. Wherefore you are the most gracious pardoner of our guilt, the most considerate judge, the lavish dispenser of clement judgement, we beg you to forget the severe judgment, and holy justice which we deserve, and only remembering only the mercies of your holy redemption, be to us an advocate and reconciler. Graciously purify and reconcile of those wanderers who await a place of dwelling in your heavenly fatherland. And we wait for the day when the Lord will awaken the bodies of them who are interred here by the power and goodness of Christ's glorious resurrection, to incorruptible glory, calling these souls not to condemnation but to beatification.
We trust in the mercies of our Holy Savior who will come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire. Make the Sign of the Cross. Amen