Free Republic

November 22 is the feast day of one of the most ancient female martyrs of the Church – Saint Cecilia of Rome. Unlike many of the other early martyrs I have mentioned in this blog (eg. here, here, here, and here), Saint Cecilia’s Acts are considered by ecclesiastical scholars to be unreliable, having been composed two to three hundred years after her death. That said, there does seem to be broad agreement on some of the basic facts: 1.) There was a Christian martyr named Cecilia. 2.) She was martyred in Rome. 3.) She was buried in the catacombs of...

However, Sister Maria became most well known for her apparent bi-location between Spain and New Spain (Texas and New Mexico). It is reported that starting in 1620 Sister Maria was mystically transported to a tribe of Native Americans in the New World and converted them to the Christian faith.

In 1644, some 43 years following her death, the body of a noblewoman was being interred in front of the sanctuary of the church when a workman accidently exhumed Germaine’s incorrupt body from under the flagstone floor. Her body looked and smelled as fresh as the day she had passed away. News spread like wildfire throughout the town. Her body was exposed in the church in the hopes of eliciting religious fervor.

The controversial public display of Padre Pio's body is attracting a new kind of Irish holidaymaker who likes to combine sunshine and spirituality. Thousands of these 'tourist pilgrims' are travelling to view the mystic monk's remains in San Giovanni Rotondo, before heading off for some secular sight-seeing around the rest of Italy. But the stigmatic saint, whose body has been exhumed 40 years after his death, is the main draw in these religious vacations to the Puglia region. Tour operators are tapping-into this growing market for trips with a sacred flavour. Around 750,000 pilgrims from all over the world have...

BODY OF CLOISTERED U.S. NUN WHO DIED IN 1939 FOUND 'INTACT' WITH GREEN PALM The spokesman for a monastery in Pennsylvania has confirmed that the body of a nun who died 63 years ago -- in 1939 -- appears to be "intact" and holding a palm that remains green. The discovery was made last August during renovation of a mausoleum in Coopersburg, about seven miles southeast of Allentown, where the nun, Mother Therese of Jesus, founded the Carmelite Monastery of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi. While there are a number of instances in...