Jump to content

Among the Saints and Unicorns

  • entry
    1
  • comments
    6
  • views
    2,236

First Post: Blog Name Explanation and Thoughts on the Veneration of Relics


Tempestrogen

1,407 views

Hi, all.

I'm a long-time lurker here on Free Jinger and an even-longer-time insomniac. So while I stayed up late last night, yet again scrolling through 'Quiver Full of Snark' and stifling my snorts and chuckles to avoid waking my sleeping boyfriend, I realized that I had yet to comment or use any of the new site features (including the option to create this blog). Honestly, I have to admit I've been a bit intimidated by the daunting number of in-jokes, acronyms, fundie-knowledge and general awesomeness I've only observed from a distance (self-admitted creepery, right there) . I know that's what 'SOTDRT' is for, but I guess my super-strength social anxiety can carry over to the Internet, too. Here we go...

First, about the blog name: Fort Tryon Park is easily my favorite place on the planet and also where I spend a lot of my free time. It's stunningly beautiful in any season and home to the Cloisters Museum, which houses the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Medieval Art collection including the famed Unicorn Tapestries and painted reliquary busts of female saints. Access to the park and the Cloisters grounds is also 100% free (which makes it the perfect place for a broke twenty-something like myself to hang out) and just two blocks over from the shoeboxed-sized one bedroom apartment I share with my boyfriend, our cat, and our two ferrets. Plus, with the Met's "pick-your-price" donation policy, you can pay as little as $1 entry fee for the Cloisters. If you're ever in New York, make sure to take the A train uptown all the way to 191st Street to check out this totally underrated cultural gem. 

Speaking of reliquary busts, the Catholic Church has a long history of peddling the body parts of dead saints. Having been raised in an extremely religious Irish and French Canadian Catholic family, I'm no stranger to the bizarre and frankly kind of icky practice of venerating relics. My mom gave me the middle name "Thérèse" as a tribute to one of her favorite saints, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, aka "the Little Flower of Jesus." The devotion to this particular saint was apparently inspired by her visit to the Carmel De Lisieux, the site of Thérèse's tomb and the Carmelite cloistered convent (say that ten times fast!) in Lisieux, Normandy where she made her claim to fame by basically being a model nun from the age of tender age of fifteen until her untimely death in 1897 from tuberculosis. She was 24 years-old when she died, which also happens to be my current age. #Goals. 

So, my largely Irish-and-Italian-American hometown had a designated boutique for Catholic knick-knacks right in the middle of a prime commercial real estate zone on Long Island, NY. It closed about six years ago, probably due in large part to the recession, and because all of the enthusiastic Catholic consumers have since retired and moved down to Florida. Pretty much everyone I went to Catholic school with has either lapsed in their faith or is a full-on Atheist. Unlike its neo-Evangelical counterparts, Catholicism isn't exactly hip. Over the past few years, Catholic Church closings have been commonplace in dioceses throughout the Northeastern and Midwestern United States. 

Although, it is pretty amusing to imagine Catholic goods stores blowing up on Yelp: Hipsters raving about growlers of filtered, ionized holy water and the energizing properties of the signature tea blend made from powdered remains of the Canonized. "The house blend StigMatcha red-green tea is literally the ONLY way I can start my day." and "Saint Boneventure's Bone Broth™ has been nothing short of miraculous in helping to cure my leaky gut syndrome!"

Anyway, whenever someone we knew received a sacrament, my mom would run out to the Catholic store to get the appropriate gift for that occasion. At least for a Baptism, First Holy Communion, Confirmation, (First) Reconciliation, or Marriage... Anointing of the Sick gifties would be too morbid even for an Irish Catholic, and all of the family friends who took Holy Orders did so after the Catholic store had already closed. (Thank God for Online Shopping, am I right, ma?) So, for my first communion my mom handed me this delicately wrapped box from the local Catholic store. Inside was pair of rosary beads with a portrait of my middle-namesake in the center. When I turned it over, I noticed a small, reddish-brown dot coated with a clear lacquer. I naively asked my mom what the spot was, and she proudly explained to her stunned seven year-old daughter that it was a drop of St Thérèse's actual blood. Apparently, the addition of this hundred-year-old bodily fluid made it extremely special and holy.

Looking back, few things illustrate the total incompatibility of my mother's and my world views quite like the fact that she fully expected me to be thrilled, and not, you know, totally horrified. I've since spent a good chunk of time playing the Elder Scrolls series, and can confidently say those rosary beads bordered on some straight-up fantasy RPG necromancy shit. But this is par for the course with the Catholic Church. Europe is littered with cathedrals, monasteries, and other pilgrimage sites where devoted Catholics gather to gaze upon the airtight glass displays showcasing the remains of "incorruptible" saints. While I'm no longer one of the Faithful, I still very much enjoyed visiting several of these sites, especially St. Denis’ Basilica just outside Paris.

Between assigned course reading of Peter Brown and finally having the option of NOT attending Mass on Sundays, I have finally begun to appreciate these wonderfully weird relics for what they really are: a source of fascination, intellectual curiosity, and yes, even abject horror. 

  • Upvote 4

6 Comments


Recommended Comments

Cleopatra7

Posted (edited)

You might be interested in the book "Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages" by Patrick J. Geary. It's about how the trade in stolen, faked, and/or fraudulent relics was a major part of the Western European economy in the central Middle Ages, as well as an important aspect of popular culture and religiosity. The book also shows that the cult of the saints was more important to many "average Christians" during this period than worship of Christ, since patron saints were viewed as supernatural protectors in the same way that the local lord or bishop was for earthly matters. Also I love the scolding Mother Angelica avatar, founder of the EWTN channel (i.e., Elderly Woman Talking Nonsense)

Edited by Cleopatra7
  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Tempestrogen

Posted (edited)

@Cleopatra7, Thank you for the recommendation! That sounds right up my alley, and I just added it to my GoodReads account to check out ASAP. Your point about the "cult of saints" reminds me of the way Catholic saints and the Virgin Mary have been adapted to, and serve as proxies for, traditional spirits and gods within the Afro-Carribean religions like Voudon and Santeria. 

Oh, yes. Mother Angelica looms large in my mind as one of my mom's favorite methods of punishment. Whenever my brothers and I would fight over the TV remote, my mom would threaten "to put on Mother Angelica." Being the oldest child, it's kind of sad that it took me until the age of 11 or 12 to realize that there was not, in fact, a 24-hour broadcast of the scary old eye-patched nun which existed for the sole purpose of punishing sinful Catholic children who couldn't agree on Arthur vs. DuckTales. But Mother Angelica was definitely the top billed program for TeleCare (the TV channel that gave Long Islanders their EWTN fix until Cablevision finally gave in and began offering subscribers the full EWTN channel in 2009, which was viewed by my family as a yuuuuge victory for East Coast Catholics against the "liberal media" (read: "entertainment industry Jews" :my_rolleyes:)

 

Edited by Tempestrogen
  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Cleopatra7

Posted

A surprising number of individuals associated with EWTN have fallen due to scandal. Fr. Corapi, a favorite with "orthodox Catholics" because of his ridiculous levels of machismo, fell because he was doing drugs and sexually and spiritually abusing a woman he was supposed to be counseling. The amount of victim-blaming the Catholic blogosphere was doing at the time was crazy. Fr. Thomas Eutenauer did the exact same thing at roughly the same time. Francis Stone, a former host of "Life on the Rock," had a family on the side and left the priesthood and EWTN when his deception was revealed. Last year, Stone was accused of sexually abuse a young child who was either his step-son or bio son, and last I heard the case was going to trial. Apparently taking a page from the Soviet Union, all these inconvenient fallen stars have been airbrushed out of existence as far as EWTN is concerned.

Link to comment
violynn

Posted

Welcome, and glad you decided to post!

I was just telling youngest today about New York and all the amazing museums the city has to offer!  I've craved visiting MOMA since I first heard of it when I was a youngster, and add names to my "Museums List" every couple years.  It seems you know just how blessed you are to be able to see all those marvelous places.  

I was fascinated with the idea of saints as a child growing up in the Catholic church, until I realized they had to suffer for the title, then I think I became a bit more squeamish about becoming one myself ;) 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Grimalkin

Posted

      I cringe because I loved listening to Fr.Corapi. I chuckled at you Mother Angelica avatar too. I still call myself Catholic, but I am bad at it. As an adult convert there are so many things I raise an eyebrow at.

Link to comment
EyeQueue

Posted

I just went through The Pardoner's Tale with my students, and they were completely fascinated by the medieval trade in fake relics. Good first entry, and welcome!

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.