Date:
2007-02-22
Relic
Fascination; Art Explaining Faith
St.
Pio of Pietrelcina
Still Draws a Crowd
By
Elizabeth Lev
Modern
Christians, particularly from the
But
the saints are the ones who tend to get the last laugh. During the last
week of January, a relic of St. Pio of Pietrelcina,
known as Padre Pio, was brought to
Francesco
Forgione, the future Padre Pio,
was born in southern
This
extraordinary holy man was famed for his tireless devotion to his ministry.
His days were divided among Mass and prayer and tending to needs of the
faithful, particularly the sacrament of reconciliation.
In
1918, Padre Pio received the stigmata, the same
wounds Christ suffered on the cross. His hands, feet and side bled until
he died, exactly 50 years later.
Padre
Pio attracted a huge following in
The
arrival of Padre Pio's relic, a bandage stained
with the blood from the wound in the saint's side, was expected to be
a modest affair, a Mass and a little procession. Instead, thousands turned
out to participate.
Relics
fascinate Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Although many see the veneration
of relics as a macabre superstition, they are still curious to see the
head of St. Catherine, or a thorn that pierced Christ's brow.
It
is an ancient practice of the Church. The resting places of the martyrs
were considered sacred from the beginning of Christianity, and indeed,
after St. Polycarp was burned at the stake in
the second century, his remains were gathered up as "more valuable
than precious stones."
The
objects or the bodies of the martyrs have never been perceived as having
powers in and of themselves. They have never been offered as magic talismans.
The Church fathers explained that as God honored the saints in life with
special grace, so God honors their remains by using them as conduits of
grace.
In
the first centuries,
In
Rome, however, objects could be fragmented so as to spread them throughout
Christian centers -- the true cross, according to St. Cyril of Jerusalem,
was already distributed all over the empire by 350. But as of the eighth
century, Roman Christians were also breaking up the saintly remains.
Relic
abuse was rife even in the time of
But
the Church has never been naive or foolish on the subject of relics. The
Council of Trent in the 16th century dealt extensively with the question
of relics -- confirming the veneration of the memory of the saints and
condemning the sale of these objects. Nor does the Church oblige its members
to believe in the authenticity of undocumented relics.
That
the present Catechism does not have a heading for relics probably makes
the veneration of relics seem like an alien activity to American Catholics.
In
reality the practice of keeping an object associated with a person dear
to us is part of our human nature. Bronzed baby shoes, a gift from a famous
person or a flower from a first date, all tangibly preserve memories that
are important to us.
As
Christians, relics are a link to our brothers and sisters in Christ who
lived exemplary lives and are now watching over us from heaven. These
memories, instead of marking a transient earthly event, remind us of their
eternal glory in the presence of God.
My
favorite relic is in the Church of the Holy Cross. There, among the wood
and the headboard of the true cross, a thorn and the cross of Dismas, the good thief, sits a little relic on its own. It
is the finger of
But
Christ accepted
*
* *
A
New Take on the Renaissance
Every
semester, during our
But
last weekend my students took me completely by surprise as they gave presentations
connecting the reason of Renaissance architecture to the faith of Florentine
society.
All
the architecture presentations were on the works of Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446),
best known for his construction of the enormous dome of the cathedral
of
Brunelleschi
designed and built several churches in
The
first remarkable presentation took place right outside Santa Croce at
the Pazzi Chapel built in the 1440s. The students
filed out of the dimly lit church built with octagonal piers, pointed
arches and wooden beams across the ceiling, and stood before a neatly
defined structure with a columned porch.
The
student explained how surprising this building must have looked to the
Florentines, so neat and measured amid the earlier forms of architecture.
Pointing out the circle of the dome and the square of the building, he
told the students that in architecture, the dome traditionally symbolized
heaven, while the square represented earth, and that Brunelleschi, through his design and decoration, was trying
to reconcile the two elements.
Watching
a student explain the function of a church building and the connection
between heaven and earth at the altar where Jesus, God and man, becomes
truly present, was one of the brightest moments
of my teaching career.
But
there was more to come. The next students presented the churches of
They
also brilliantly presented Brunelleschi's modular
system of building. This technique, learned from the ancient Romans, takes
a fixed measurement, such as the diameter of a column, and uses that length
as the basis of the whole building. The aisle would be 10 column widths,
for example, the nave 30, the height triple that number and so forth.
This
system of perfect proportion lends harmony to a structure, and as the
students pointed out, the emphasis on the concordant interaction of the
space in the church, is meant to mirror the harmony of heaven and God's
divine plan.
During
the Renaissance, architects left behind the splashy gold mosaics and stained-glass
windows which once dazzled the medieval world into sensing a transcendent
space, and replaced it with mathematical organization, using the sciences
to focus people on the perfection of God.
For
many years, I have heard students repeat the tired mantra that the Renaissance
era, fascinated by the empirical study of nature, used science to liberate
itself from religion, and that this emancipation is reflected in the art
and architecture of the time.
But
as these young people pointed out, the Renaissance used mathematics, geometry
and architecture to enhance their understanding of God, seeing in the
harmony of numbers God's essence as logos, or reason.
This
remarkable era of faith and reason, understood and explained by young
people from another country 500 years later, is an example the amazing
universality of the Christian artistic tradition.
*
* *
Elizabeth
Lev teaches Christian art and architecture at