He Left His Heart.... In Guatemala!
.- When Fr. Stanley Rother, a missionary priest from Okarche, Oklahoma, was was killed in Guatemala, his body was transferred back to the United States to be buried by his family.
But his heart remained in Guatemala.
Literally.
The native Guatemalans loved their pastor so much that they enshrined his heart at the mission parish in Santiago Atitlan.
On Sept. 23, that heart will go from being a disembodied remain to a first-class relic, a sacred artifact of someone who has been beatified by the Catholic Church.
The keeping and venerating of relics is perhaps one of the more bizarre Catholic practices, but it’s a scripturally-backed practice of the Church since its beginning.
There are three classes of relics recognized by the Church. First-class relics are bodily remains of a saint, such as bones or flesh or hair. Second-class relics are belongings of the saint, such as clothes or other personal items. Third-class relics are items that have been touched to a first- or second-class relic of that saint.
They exhumed his body to see if it was incorruptible, and while they were at it....
Both the exhumation and examination are done “with great dignity and reverence, and there is a process by which we exhumed his body from the family plot at the parish cemetery in Okarche,” the archbishop added.
“And in that process we took one of his ribs, and that’s what we used for preparing first class relics,” he said.
But his heart remained in Guatemala.
Literally.
The native Guatemalans loved their pastor so much that they enshrined his heart at the mission parish in Santiago Atitlan.
On Sept. 23, that heart will go from being a disembodied remain to a first-class relic, a sacred artifact of someone who has been beatified by the Catholic Church.
The keeping and venerating of relics is perhaps one of the more bizarre Catholic practices, but it’s a scripturally-backed practice of the Church since its beginning.
There are three classes of relics recognized by the Church. First-class relics are bodily remains of a saint, such as bones or flesh or hair. Second-class relics are belongings of the saint, such as clothes or other personal items. Third-class relics are items that have been touched to a first- or second-class relic of that saint.
They exhumed his body to see if it was incorruptible, and while they were at it....
Both the exhumation and examination are done “with great dignity and reverence, and there is a process by which we exhumed his body from the family plot at the parish cemetery in Okarche,” the archbishop added.
“And in that process we took one of his ribs, and that’s what we used for preparing first class relics,” he said.
Labels: beatification, Guatermala, martyrs
posted by jope @ September 20, 2017
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