How to Venerate a Relic

My interaction with relics was, until recently, not different from the way many interact with the sacred remains of St. Francis Xavier, now exposed for all the faithful until the fifth of January next year. The process was, and is for these faithful, fairly simple; one approaches the relic, files past, perhaps one kneels – since one is the presence of the sacred – kisses the relic, and then one moves on. All too often, especially in the case of a relic like that of St. Francis Xavier, one is obliged to move on, either by the press of the queue behind us, or by the ushers who shoo us along after the few seconds that are granted to us. Even if there isn’t such a crush of persons behind us, my own practice in the presence of relics was fairly brisk, if not – I am now ashamed to admit – perfunctory. All of this changed over the past year thanks to two experiences I would like to share with you.

The second of the experiences, which I would like to share first, took place around this time last year. I had made a trip to the lovely hill town of Loreto in the Italian province of Ancona. The town is famous for having the remains of the Holy house of Nazareth, the place where the Holy family – Jesus, Mary and Joseph – lived after their return from Egypt, and also the location of the Annunciation, the place where Our Lady received the visit from the angel Gabriel. Reportedly carried over by angels (though secular history tells us that the remains were carried over by the Angelis family) what remains of the house are a few tiers of bricks, which are incorporated into three walls of the holy house, the fourth wall being the altar of the shrine within the house.  

If I recollect correctly my traveling companion fell ill at the time, and so I was left delightfully alone and free to do my own thing. And so it was, that I filled my day with multiple visits to the church built around the Holy House, praying the various mysteries of the rosary, sometimes spending time in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament exposed for most of the day in the church. I did not necessarily visit the Holy House at every visit, or caress the stone bricks that constitute the house, but perambulated around it most of the time, restricting my own access to the House, preferring instead to contemplate the mysteries of the rosary. 

Let me assure you, however, of what a beautiful time I had at Loreto. It was perhaps the most wonderful experiences I had of a place. It filled me and buoyed me, and I cannot wait to share this experience with others in the future!

The first of the experiences is probably what influenced my approach to the Holy House in Loreto. This experience took place during the World Youth Day held in Lisbon in the month of August last year. There were at least three relics also visiting Lisbon at the time along with the thousands, and thousands, of Catholic pilgrims from across the world. One of these was a ring worn by St. Joan of Arc, the second was the skull of St. Thomas Aquinas, and the third were relics of St. Therese of Lisieux. 

I was unable to visit the first of these relics, but I managed to pay a visit to the other two. But I suspect it was the second of these relics that made the greatest impression on me. For those imagining that I was able to gawk at the skull of a man long dead (St Thomas Aquinas died in 1274) I must assure you that I do not recollect actually seeing his skull. It was housed in a box and placed at a distance away from the venerating faithful. Indeed, reflecting on that experience, one realises how fortunate one is to have such an intimate access to St. Francis Xavier during the Exposition.

Unsure on what to do next, I almost slipped into my habit of leaving immediately after a few moments of perfunctory prayer. Perhaps it was the presence of all those young people in fervent prayer that caused me to hold on; or perhaps it was the fact that over the past few years – and especially during the pandemic – I had been listening to videos produced by the Dominicans of the Province of St Joseph. Under the rubric Aquinas 101, these videos provide an easily understandable introduction to the teachings of the Universal Doctor of the Church. And so it was that I realised that I was in the presence of the skull of the man who had given me so much. How could I just up and leave without spending some time with a man who was becoming, if not already, a friend?

I did spend time, perhaps a half and hour, and then left. And then, over the course of the following day, something happened. It was imperceptible at first, and then I couldn’t put a finger on it. but then I realised that in many ways it was as if I felt the physical presence of Aquinas. Not in some spooky way, but nevertheless palpably. And this is when I realised this was how one venerates a relic.

A saint of the Catholic Church is a friend, especially if we call out to them in times of need. They are, according to Catholic teaching, still awaiting reunion with their bodies, yet they can respond to our calls, owing to their proximity to God. It is this friendship that we are called to cultivate with the saints, and the veneration of their relics is a part of this process of deepening our friendship with them. We spend time in their physical presence, just as one does with a friend, silently, just as one does with very special friends, and the relationship grows as a result of this passing of time with them.

And so, dear reader, if you happen to go to Old Goa to see St. Francis Xavier – and I encourage you to do so – don’t just file past his remains. Rather, once you are done venerating him, find a pew close by, kneel in prayer, or simply sit in his presence. Don’t ask, or request, but simply be in his presence, reflect on his life, and let him respond. He has kept Goa safe thus far, he will keep you safe too.

(A version of this text was first published in the O Heraldo dated 25 Nov 2024.

Image Reference: Commemorative image of the exposition of St. Francis Xavier, in The Relic State:St Francis Xavier and the politics of ritual in Portuguese India, Pamila Gupta, Manchester University Press.)

Salvation History at play in Goa: Homily for the feast of St. Catherine of Alexandria, patron of the Sé of Goa

Today, the second day of the novena to our patron, St. Francis Xavier, we also celebrate the feast of the patron of the Cathedral, St. Catherine of Alexandria, and the theme of the day’s liturgy is “Kristacho onnbhov ami ghetla, Tache govai ami” (Messengers of the Encounter with Christ). This theme speaks clearly of the life and witness of St. Catherine of Alexandria, who was so convinced of her experience of Christ, that she willingly gave her life in witness to Him.

Catherine is reported to have converted to Christianity at the age of fourteen, when she was already a learned scholar. So convinced of Christ was she, that she managed to convert others to the true faith. However, Catherine also lived at a time when Christianity was subject to vicious persecution by the Roman emperors. Rather than hide from these persecutions, Catherine is reported to have rather borne her witness to Christ by presenting herself before the emperor and converting the many men who came to debate with her. At this point, the emperor proposed marriage to her. Catherine may have well been inspired by the words of Saint Paul we heard in the second reading today:

I promised you in marriage to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.  

Therefore, she refused the emperor’s offer, having decided to present herself as a chaste virgin to Christ. She was sentenced to death, and eventually gave the foremost witness to her experience of Christ, by becoming a martyr for him. In fact, we should remember that the word martyr is derived from the Greek word for witness.

What could have made a girl of eighteen years so willingly give up her life for Christ? The answer, my dear brothers and sisters, is present in the words of the Gospel we just heard, where Our Lord teaches us that we should not be afraid of those who can only kill the body, but not the soul. We should fear only one person, and that is God, who can kill both body and soul by condemning us to Hell for all eternity at the time of the Final Judgement.

Indeed, the first reading tells us that it is the foolish who think that physical death is a disaster and the end. We Christians know, and more than know, we believe, that physical death is sleep, and – once again as the first reading tells us – in the course of this sleep we are purified in purgatory, so that at the time of the Final Judgement we can be presented before God with our souls purified so that we can be reunited with our glorified bodies.

My dear brothers and sisters, it is not only this knowledge that should allow us to bear witness to Christ before the foolishness of the world we live in; A world that is more concerned with money, and consumption, and power, and fame, and pleasure. We also have another knowledge, which Catherine was also convinced of. That God loves us. The Gospel today tells us “all the hairs of your head are counted” and so, do not be afraid. If you have to boast, boast of Our Lord, proclaim Christ, not only in words, but in every action that you do. Believe and know that at the end of our physical life, we will come before Him and He will demand an account for the life we have led. And if we fail, my dear brothers and sisters, we can be sure that we will be punished. 

My dear brothers and sisters, this city of Old Goa was conquered for Christ in 1510 on the feast day of St. Catherine of Alexandria, and we must believe that it was through her intercession that the conditions were created for us to become Catholic, to know God and to love Him, for St. Francis Xavier to come to Goa, and for him to then go out from Goa to other parts of Asia and preach Christ and win souls for Him. Let me emphasize the point, we are here today, because of St. Francis Xavier; and St. Francis Xavier is here today, and was here in his life on earth, because of St. Catherine. Let us, therefore, intercede to St. Catherine of Alexandria today, that we gain the depth of her experience of Christ, and gain the courage to bear witness to Christ every day of our lives.

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, pray for us. Saint Francisco Xavier, pray for us.

(This homily was first preached to the faithful at the Basilica of Bom Jesus, Old Goa on 25 Nov 2024.
Image Reference:  The patrons of Goa and Goans: St. Francis Xavier, St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. José Vaz, David Silva Fernandes, 2023.)

Prayers for the End Times: Homily for the Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

I don’t need to tell you that we commemorate the faithful departed on the second day of November. But perhaps it needs to be emphasized that Holy Mother Church dedicates the entire month of November to the memory of the departed, urging us to pray for the liberation of their souls from Purgatory. Like much that Holy Mother Church does, there is a logic to the placing of this month dedicated to the dead at the end of the year. To understand this logic, we need to pay attention to the words of the Gospel this morning. Speaking of the end times, when the Son of Man will come in glory, Our Lord says:

Learn a lesson from the fig tree.
When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves,
you know that summer is near.
In the same way, when you see these things happening,
know that he is near, at the gates.

Our Lord is asking us to pay attention to the natural world, in this case the fig tree, and signalling that just as we can read the signs of the natural world, we must be able to read the signs of the supernatural world. In today’s Gospel, the signs of the natural world clearly point to the supernatural:

the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from the sky

And so it is, that when the days grow shorter, the nights longer, and when darkness seems to rule the natural world, Holy Mother Church turns our attention toward our own mortal lives and invites us to think of those souls who must be passing their time in the realms of darkness, in purgatory, and waiting for release into Heaven, the Kingdom of Light Divine. And look at the incredible mind of the church, where it is the penitential season of Advent that comes soon after this month of recollection, where we prepare for commemoration of the coming of Our Lord, in Christmas.

In the first reading we are made aware of the fullness of the teaching of the Church:

Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake;
    some shall live forever,
    others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace.

For the Christian, mortal death is not the real death, rather the real death is that of the soul. The mortal death that we experience, along with illness, is the result of sin. As a result of original sin, our bodies are separated from our soul at the time of mortal death. And yet, as the first reading promises us, this is not the end, for mortal death is merely sleep. There will come a time, at the Final Judgement, when we will be resurrected, and be reunited with our bodies, and it is in these bodies that we shall either experience the glory of heaven, or the damnation of hell. As the first reading informed us: “some shall live forever, others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace.” This damnation is the real death; to be separated from God for all time.

This is also what the psalm today teaches:

Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices,
    my body, too, abides in confidence;
because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld,
    nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption.

Pay attention, however, to the word “faithful”. It is only the faithful who will not be abandoned to the netherworld.

The first reading also contains a similar message:

the wise shall shine brightly
    like the splendour of the firmament,
and those who lead the many to justice
    shall be like the stars forever.

 The words of the scripture are clear, therefore, it is only the faithful, the wise, and the just who shall enjoy the delights of heaven, or as the psalms say:

fullness of joys in your presence,
    the delights at your right hand forever.

And who are these faithful, the wise and the just?  Entry into heaven, into the presence of God is not simply open to those who are virtuous, or who are good people. The second reading, from the letter to the Hebrews, makes this quite clear, 

For by one offering
he has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated.

The offering being referred to here, dear brothers and sisters, is the offering Our Lord made of His own life, so that the effects of original sin which barred our communion with God may be erased and our relationship with God restored. Remember that it was only after the death and resurrection of Our Lord that the righteous who died before Him were able to enter Heaven. And so it is, that baptism alone, the consecration that is referred to in the reading from the letter to the Hebrews, that permits us to be made faithful, the wise and the just enough to enter heaven. 

It is baptism, dear brothers and sisters that allows us to enter into the Church. In turn the Church, which through the sacraments and its teachings, allows us to reach purgatory, and not hell. And it is the Church, that through its provision to us of the Eucharist - “the one offering” that gives us, as the Gospel acclamation says, “the strength to stand before the Son of Man” our Righteous Judge, and then enter heaven, where we will be reunited with our glorious bodies in the presence of God, His Mother, and all His Saints.

May Our Lord give us the grace to prepare for a blessed death, even as we continue to pray for the faithful departed.

Eternal Rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let the perpetual light shine upon them.

(A version of this homily was first preached in Concanim to the faithful at the parish of Our Lady of the Rosary, Fatorda on 17 Nov 2024.)

How to Read the Good Book: Homily for the Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

The first reading this Sunday offers us the opportunity to learn at least one way in which we can making our reading of the Bible richer. Now reading the Bible is an excellent way of getting to know Our Lord. But we need to remember that we are not required to read the Bible only as we might a good book. Rather, given that it is the Good Book, we are also required to meditate on what we read. This reading and meditation will be made easier if we utilise a technique which I would like to share with you. 

When reading the Old Testament, we need to bear in mind that this portion of the Bible is filled with what are called types, and these types prefigure Christ, or are signs that point to Christ. These types prepare people for Christ, and are completed by Our Lord, who gives them a fullness they don’t otherwise contain. Further, these types are useful only to the extent that they point to Christ.

Let us take the example of the encounter between the prophet Elijah and the widow. Elijah asks the widow for some bread, and she responds that she does not have anything to spare, since she will make something for herself and her son with the flour and oil that remains, and then, with their stock of food exhausted, will await death. 

Elijah’s response is an assurance that if she gave him bread, not only would she have some bread left over for herself and her son, but the oil and flour would not run out until the rain came and ended the drought! She believed, did as requested, and as a result, the flour and oil lasted for an entire year.

Now let us look at this scenario again. What does the prophet Elijah need and ask for? Bread! We can already see that this is type, a prefiguring of the Eucharist, which is also – supernatural – bread. And what is the cost of the bread? If the widow takes the flour and oil that she has and uses it to make bread that she will give to the prophet, she, and her son, will die! Meaning, this gift of bread will cost her her life! And what else does she use to prepare the bread? The two pieces of wood that she was collecting when she met Elijah. The wood, as we should see already, and as St. Augustine points out, is a prefiguring, or a type, of the Cross, the wood on which the Christ, in obedience and charity like the widow, gave up His life, so that He might become for us the Bread of Life.

If the preparation of this bread allowed the widow to have food for a year, then the Eucharist allows us to live for eternal life. So, we can see how this is a type, it points to Christ, but whereas Christ offers us life eternal, this bread offers life for a limited period.

And then there are also the multiple times the feeding of the multitude is prefigured (Mt 14:20; Mk 6: 43; Lk 9:12–17; Jn 6:13; Mt 15:37; Mk 8: 8). Elijah assures the widow that if she gives him bread then she will be able to “prepare something for yourself and your son.” 

We should also remember that this encounter between the prophet and the widow can be read in the context of the exodus of the Israelites and their journey in the desert. If the desert is a place without water, then the prophet Elijah, the widow and her son, are suffering the effects of drought, when there is no water available. In other words, they are in a desert like situation, and just as God sent manna in the desert to feed the Israelites through the entire period of the exodus, so too, he provides for them through the period of the drought. We too are provided with the Eucharist to get through the desert, which is this world, and to the promised land, our home in heaven.

Indeed, the widow in this encounter could well be a prefiguring of ourselves, the Church, which was preached to the Gentiles, who did not know the God of Israel, but listened, believed, added their sufferings to those of Christ, and were rewarded with Bread from Heaven.

I must add that this is acquired only after we have been reading the Bible, or at least the lectionary, regularly. But I assure you, my dear brothers and sisters, that as you persist at reading the Good Book, this skill will – with the Grace of God – develop. The next step, after recognising the signs and prefigurings, is to pause when we see that there are so many meanings associated with the words we are reading. Collect all these associations and let the words we are reading become heavy with these associations. Pause, and meditate, and then let the Holy Spirit do the job of revealing their message to you. In this step, we must be like our heavenly mother, who as the Gospel of Luke tells us; “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart” (Lk 2:19).

May the Holy Spirit and Our Heavenly Mother always guide your reading of the Good Book.

(A version of this homily was first preached to the faithful on 9 Nov 2024 at the parish of Our Lady of the Rosary, Fatorda.
Image reference: “Virgin Annunciate”, Antonello da Messina, c.1475, Galleria Regionale della Sicilia, Palermo, via wikipedia.)

Raining Manna on our Hearts: Homily for the Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

We have recently received a papal encyclical, Dilexit Nos, where the Holy Father, Pope Francis has contemplated the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a devotion that I am particularly fond of. This is, perhaps, why when I read the Gospel for today, all I could do was focus on the word heart which occurs in the Gospel reading.

As you have just heard, Our Lord was asked which was the greatest of all the many commandments which the Jews had to obey, and He responded:

The first is this:
Hear, O Israel!
The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.

And so, we have this commandment which I would like to focus on today: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.”

How does one love the Lord Our God with all our heart? In Dilexit Nos Pope Francis teaches us that classical Greek culture – which we are heirs to – treated the heart, not only as the core of the body, but the soul and spirit as well (§3). You will notice that there is also something of this meaning in the commandment – we first hear of the heart, and then as if to indicate what the heart means we are told that it means with all our soul, our mind, and our strength – in other words, the heart is the core of all these things. Pope Francis also teaches that biblically, the heart is the place where there is no “deceit and disguise” (§5). To love God with all our heart, therefore, is to love Him above all things, not privileging other things – fame, pleasure, power, wealth – before him.

But this does not answer the question, how do we love Him with all our heart.

To answer this question, I would like to turn to the Arabic word for heart, qalb, and the many other words it operates as a root for. The heaving movement of the heart allows for the root qalb to be used for ploughing and turning over. Indeed, so powerful is the sense of this movement and turning, that qalb is also the root for the word that we in India know well, Inquilab, revolution.  From this use in turning and ploughing, we can now see the heart not merely as an organ, but as soil which needs to be turned over – as one discussion on this word observed, the business of the heart (qalb) is to be turned (maqlub) so that it gives up and becomes free. We need to plough our hearts to see if there is anything else that we love above God. And if there is such a thing, then we need to weed it out of the field of our heart. Weed out those stones that make our heart stony and throw them away. Pull out those thorny weeds in our hearts and, to use imagery that Our Lord used, cast them into the fire (Mt 13:30). This is what we need to do with our hearts, plough it, and turn it over, preparing it like soil which needs to be turned over before it can receive, both the rain, as well as seed. 

And what is the rain and the seed that this prepared heart will receive? There are so many phrases that one could pull out from the Bible which speak of the rain that God provides to water the earth, and cause grain to grow. Take, for instance, this verse from Job (5:10):

He gives rain on the earth
    and sends waters on the fields;

Or these lovely verses from Psalm 65:9-10:

You visit the earth and water it,
    you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
    you provide the people with grain,
    for so you have prepared it.
You water its furrows abundantly,
    settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
    and blessing its growth.

But the rain he sends, is not merely water – which could be read as the stream of water that flows from the Sacred Heart of Our Lord (Dilexit Nos § 104, 174, 219). There is another object that he rains down on us. Listen to this phrase from the book of Exodus where God tells Moses:

I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day…. (Ex 16:4)

God was true to his word to Moses and sent manna in the desert to the Israelites throughout the forty years of their wanderings in the desert. But this manna, was merely a shadow, a prefiguring, to use the technical word, of a more substantial bread that we can receive every day, but most certainly every Sunday: the Eucharist – the daily bread we pray for in the Our Father.

This is the seed that is rained down on our hearts. If we have ploughed the soil of our heart well, and one could well think of a good confession as a part of this act of ploughing, this holy seed plants itself in our hearts and makes our hearts a little bit more like the Sacred Heart of Jesus; the heart of the Son who loves His Father, and who loves us. A heart, that burns with love for us.

And there is some more good news! When we hear the phrase “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart”, we should remember that “this in no way”, as Dilexit Nos teaches us, “implies an undue reliance on our own abilities” (§30). Remember that the desire to love God has already been implanted in our hearts by our creator. As St. Augustine famously teaches “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” All the restlessness of our hearts, my dear brothers and sisters, is the restlessness that our hearts have to return to Our Father, and it is the Son, who through the gift of His Body will take our hearts to the Father, if only we do our bit, which is to turn over our lives, and to plough the field of our hearts – the act of sacramental confession. And even to do this bit, he provides us the graces we need. Indeed, we should know that when we plough our hearts, it is He who is holding the plough, and it is He who yokes Himself to the plough as He shares the burden with us, because He has promised us:

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Mt 11: 28-30) 

Let us then, my dear brothers and sisters, turn to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and say, and I would like you to repeat after me: “Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in Thee.” And again, “Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in Thee.”

(A version of this homily was first preached to the faithful at the church of Our Lady of the Rosary, Fatorda on 2 Nov 2024.
Image Credit: “Manna Falling from Heaven”, Nüremberg Bible, 1400s.)