RELICS OF OUR LADY, VENICE

Day 18: May 28

    The veneration of the Marian relics can be traced back to the old Byzantium. Among those relics of the Blessed Mother, her Girdle and Veil are the most important. While the Girdle was associated with the Chalcoprateia church, the Veil was with the Blachernae church. These relics were believed to have been brought to Constantinople from Jerusalem by Arcadius along with the painting of the Blessed Mother by St Luke the Evangelist.   

    The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a Catholic Dogma which teaches that she was assumed body and soul into heaven. The dogma suggests that nothing of her body remains here on earth as relic. However, some objects that have had some associations with the Blessed Mother have been handed down to us. In AD 326 Her Majesty Helen, the Empress of Rome (Saint Helena or Helen of Constantinople), made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, she paid visit to many holy sites including Mary's tomb or the place where Mary rested before her assumption into heaven. The stones collected from this place have been classified as Ex Sepulcro (from the sepulcher) whereas the relics gathered from two different houses of Mary have been known as Ex Domo (from the house). The first of these two houses, as we have it in the gospels, is the house of the Holy Family in Nazareth and the relics from this house were brought to Loreto, Italy in 1295. The second house is the one where St John the Apostle and Mary lived in Ephesus, Turkey.

    The Cathedral of Chartres in France has a silk veil that is believed to have been used by Mary. It has been venerated in this cathedral since 876 AD and was venerated in Constantinople by the Byzantine Emperors for centuries prior to that. Since the beginning of its veneration in France, the veil has survived fires and the effects of weather, often requiring cleaning and repair work. Over the centuries documents of the relics of the Veil of Mary (“Ex Velo”) have come from little strands of cloth removed from the veil, or from linen that was laid over it to protect or clean it, thus absorbing its sanctity. The Chartres Cathedral in France is home to a Chemise said to have been worn by the Virgin Mary during the birth of Christ. The undergarment, or Sancta Camisia that lain against the naked skin of the Virgin Mary, said to have been given to the church in 876, was thought to have been destroyed in a fire in 1194. Three days later it was found miraculously unharmed in the treasury, which the bishop claimed was a sign from Mary herself that another, more magnificent, cathedral should be built in its place. The Holy Girdle of the Blessed Virgin Mary (“Ex Cincturae”) is a Christian relic in the form of a "girdle" or knotted camel hair cord used as a belt, that according to a medieval legend was dropped by the Virgin Mary from the sky to Saint Thomas the Apostle at or around the time of the Assumption of Mary to Heaven. When the belt found its way to Prato, Italy in the 14th century, a special chapel was erected to house it. Today, the belt, called Sacra Cintola, is revered as a relic of the Virgin Mary and is displayed five times a year (Christmas, Easter, May 1, Aug. 15, and on Mary's birthday, Sept. 8). Ex Capillis - the Only Bodily Relic of the Blessed Virgin Mary The Hair of Our Lady is the rarest and the most desirable of all holy relics and the only first-class relic we have of the Most Holy Mother of God. Since the Blessed Virgin Mary was assumed into Heaven with body and soul, no physical relics of Her exist. The sole exception is that of Her hair, which had been preserved and venerated since antiquity in the Holy House of Nazareth. The Holy relic was initially kept by the Patriarchs of Jerusalem until the fifth century when it was ordered by the Byzantine Empress Pulcheria for the Holy relics of the Virgin's Veil and Hair to be translated to Constantinople. Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) allegedly had the Hair of Mary and so did Pope Sergius II, which is now enshrined in Emmerich, Germany. A spectacular 18th-century reliquary in the treasure of the Basilica of Saint Mark in Venice contains an extremely rare first-class ex Capillis relic of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Within the reliquary, which is secured by the personal seal of Pope Pius VI (p. 1775-1799), is a bundle of the Blessed Virgin's own hair. Parts of Mary’s Hair were claimed to be in the Messina Cathedral in Sicily, after being brought to Piazza, Sicily, by the Crusaders. There are still several other places where Mary’s Hair is reportedly venerated: in 1148 in Saint Eucharius-Matthias and in 1209 in Saint Mary of the Martyrs in Trier as well as in 1170 in the Cistercian Abbey of Himmerode and in 1282 in the Benedictine Monastery of Prüfening; all of these sites are in Germany. In 1283 Mary’s hair has been deposited in a reliquary at the Augustinian Monastery in Ranshofen, Austria as well as in Linköping, Sweden.

Mary, Our Mother

"If Christ is preached on the rooftop, if he is proclaimed so that everyone may come to know him in the teaching presented to the whole world, then the mystery of the Mother of God opens itself to the inner core of the Church, to the faithful who receive the Word of God. ...This is not only the object of our faith, but it is something more; it is the fruit of faith, matured into Tradition."

(Vladimir Lossky, "Panaghia" in Tutta Santa, quoted in: Mariology: A Guide for Priests, Deacons, Seminarians and Consecrated Persons, ed. Mark Miravalle, Goleta, Seat of Wisdom Books, 2007, pp. 772-773)