We Catholics have a corner on the market of relics; that is to say we have exhumed, collected, horded, stolen, traded and bought, (not to mention stashed, hidden, coveted and fought over) the body parts of Saints!Throughout Europe there are shrines containing the incorruptible bodies of Saints – and in some cases the once incorruptible bodies of saints. For instance, the completely incorrupt body of St. Bernadette is encased in Nevers, France, and the not so incorrupt body of Saint Francis Xavier is in Goa, India.
I have journeyed to visit many a saint’s exhumed body or body parts; Europe abounds with opportunities, some of which I have written about here. Amazingly America has a few as well. But why? Why do we do this sort of odd and seemingly creepy thing of collecting dead people’s bodies or body parts?
On Good Friday, my husband and I flew into Denver, for a family reunion in the mountains. We have made this trip a couple of times and each trip we pass by a sign that says “Mother Cabrini Shrine”. But this time we stopped. As we drove up the road, we passed hundreds of young people hiking up the hill, making a pilgrimage to the shrine. We were in the right spot at the right time!
The shrine consists of a retreat house, conference center, a church, an adoration chapel, a spring and 373 stairs that lead to a 22 foot statue of Christ. Oh yeah, and a relic of Mother Cabrini. A piece of her finger!
Mother Cabrini was an Italian nun, living in New York, who was sent to open an orphanage in Denver. The property where the shrine is located was purchased as a summer camp for the kids, and as a place to minister to the local Italian immigrants. The property had no running water, making it a very inexpensive (and undesirable) property. Life for the nuns who lived there was difficult. For four years Mother Cabrini ministered there; the only source of water was a stagnant pool. Just before leaving to return to New York, Mother Cabrini gathered the other nuns, tapped on a rock and said, “dig here”. Beneath the rock they found a spring that still runs today, 100 years later.
And 100 years later, her body is in New York, but I visited a piece of her finger in Colorado. Proof of the existence of a woman so simple and humble, so connected to God that she could hear the spirit whisper, dig here, revealing life-giving water!
