Pints With Aquinas - 45: What are relics? Why should we venerate them?

Episode Date: February 21, 2017

As Augustine says (De Civ. Dei i, 13): "If a father's coat or ring, or anything else of that kind, is so much more cherished by his children, as love for one's parents is greater, in no way are the bodies themselves to be despised, which are much more intimately and closely united to us than any garment; for they belong to man's very nature." It is clear from this that he who has a certain affection for anyone, venerates whatever of his is left after his death, not only his body and the parts thereof, but even external things, such as his clothes, and such like. Now it is manifest that we should show honor to the saints of God, as being members of Christ, the children and friends of God, and our intercessors. Wherefore in memory of them we ought to honor any relics of theirs in a fitting manner: principally their bodies, which were temples, and organs of the Holy Ghost dwelling and operating in them, and are destined to be likened to the body of Christ by the glory of the Resurrection. Hence God Himself fittingly honors such relics by working miracles at their presence. ST III, Q. 25, A. 6. --- SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS  Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

Welcome to Pints with Aquinas, episode 45. I'm Matt Fradd. If you could sit down with St. Thomas Aquinas over a pint of beer and ask him any one question, what would it be? Today we'll ask St. Thomas, what's this whole deal about relics anyway. Welcome back to Pints with Aquinas. This is the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. I want to thank all of you who are donating to keep this show going. There's over 40 of you now who are giving $2 a month, $10 a month, $20 a month to keep the show going. Totally appreciate it.

If you're listening and you're thinking, what? I totally want to give some money because I love Pints with Aquinas. Then this is how you would do it. Go to pintswithaquinas.com and click the Patreon banner and you can learn about some of the thank you gifts I'd like to give you for supporting the show.

If you're thinking, shut up, I don't want to give you any money. That's also okay. And I love you and you're totally welcome. At the end of today's show, stick around because I have a little chat with a girl, I say girl, a woman, Katie Kuhar about why she loves Pints with Aquinas so much and decided to start donating. So, stick around for that. Also, I got to tell you, we have a closed group on Facebook. We have hundreds of people in the Pints with Aquinas group

who are discussing philosophy, theology, beer, St. Thomas, and we would love to have you with us. So, type in Pints with Aquinas into your Facebook search bar or whatever and join. The only reason it's a closed group is so that I can block people who might decide they want to spam us. But so far, thankfully, no one's doing that. Okay, today we're going to be talking about relics. What on earth is a relic? Well, when Catholics and just hopefully other Christians as well talk about relics, they're talking about perhaps one of three things, the bones or body parts of a saint, or they might be talking about clothing or some sort of object which the saint owned, or they might just be referring to something the saint or the saint's clothing has touched.

Now, I'm going to share something which I find funny and you might think is totally horrendous, but here we go. It's kind of funny, don't you think, that as Catholics, we're like, reverence the body, the body is good. And then if you're a saint and you die, we throw you into the chipper and cut you all up and ship your body all over the world. Maybe it's not funny. I thought it was funny. Now, upstairs, we have a small little prayer room, and I have three different relics. I have Padre Pio, Therese of Lisieux, and Saint Gemma, and I will take these down from time to time and use them to pray with the kids, and they'll kiss them. In other words, they will venerate them. So, today we want to talk about should we venerate

relics? And I also want to look towards the end of the show, five quick scripture verses, which I think support the Catholic teaching on relics. But before we do, I want to define a couple of terms that you may have heard of, but may have no idea what they mean. And those terms are the following, dulia, hyperdulia, and latria. Now, the reason I want to talk about this is because what we're going to read from St. Thomas Aquinas comes from the third part of the Summa Theologiae. It's actually question 25, article 6, but it's in this question that he's discussing things like Latria, Dulia, Hyperdulia. So, it would probably be helpful if we had some understanding of what

those things are. So, get ready, buckle up, you're about to understand them. They're technical terms, right? And they're used to distinguish veneration of different sorts. Okay. So, when we talk about dulia, this is a Greek term which means veneration or homage. Now, this sort of veneration or homage is different in nature and degree from the veneration and homage that we give to God, okay? Dulia is the sort of veneration that is owed to the saints. So, it would involve, for example, honoring the saints, okay, having prayer cards of the saints, perhaps even kissing a prayer card, visiting the tombs of the saints and praying before them and seeking their intercession with God. That's what we mean

by dulia. But what's this term hyperdulia? What does that mean? Well, hyperdulia is a special veneration and it's given not to all of the saints, but to one saint in particular. Any guesses on who that is? The Blessed Virgin Mary. So, this is the highest form of dulia we should give to a person, and it is the Blessed Virgin Mary. And why? Well, it's because we've said this many times in the past in previous episodes. It's because of her unique relationship that she had with each person of the Blessed Trinity. Not only was she the daughter of God the Father, she was the mother of God the Son, and in a very mysterious way, the spouse of God the Holy Ghost. So, because of her unique role, we owe her hyperdulia.

Now, what about latria? Well, latria refers to adoration. It's actually a Greek-rooted Latin term that refers to the kind of praise and worship that is due to God alone. So, whereas dulia is reserved for the saints, latria, right, is the sort of praise, as I say, that's reserved exclusively for God. So, this is the question Aquinas wants to answer, you know, is there any sort of reverence that is due to the relics of the saints? Well, the answer is, you know, we certainly aren't giving Latria to the relics of the saints, nor are we giving Dulia to the relics of the saints. But what we are giving is certainly reverence. So, why? Well, here's what Aquinas says. He begins by quoting Augustine.

Well, here's what Aquinas says. He begins by quoting Augustine. are the bodies themselves to be despised, which are much more intimately and closely united to us than any garment, for they belong to man's very nature. It is clear from this that he who has a certain affection for anyone venerates whatever of his is left after his death, not only his body and the parts thereof, but even external things such as his clothes and such like. Now it is manifest that we should show honor to the saints of God as being members of Christ, the children and friends of God, and our intercessors. Wherefore, in memory of them, we ought to honor any relic of theirs in a fitting manner, principally their bodies, which were temples and organs of the Holy Ghost dwelling and operating in them, and are destined to be likened to the body of Christ by the glory of the resurrection. Hence, God himself fittingly honors such relics by working miracles at their

presence. So, that, brothers and sisters, is why we should offer reverence to the body parts and even the objects saints owned, clothes, for example, for that very reason. Now, you might be thinking, well, hang about, this doesn't sound very biblical. So, what if we wanted some biblical sorts of answers? Well, I want to give you five quick biblical answers to show that the Bible supports the Catholic teaching of relics. But before we do, that the Bible supports the Catholic teaching of relics. But before we do, a quick break. My name is Gomer, and I'm the co-host of Catching Foxes. Foxes. Foxes. Catching Foxes. Foxes. I would like to tell you about something more important than my podcast. What? Pints with Aquinas. Pints with Aquinas. Matt Fradd actually wrote a book on 50 plus deep thoughts from the

angelic doctor. Pints with Aquinas. Here's the deal. Beer is easily lovable, but medieval monastic philosophers, they can be quite intimidating. Yet in this short pithy book, and I don't use that word often. In fact, I never use the word pithy, but I'm going to use it here, and you're going to agree with me. Matt Fradd made the greatest mind in the history of the church as easily accessible as your favorite beer. You'll laugh, you'll cry. Well, you won't cry, but you'll laugh,

and you'll discover that this old school philosopher's wisdom is just as relevant today as it was back then. So do yourself a favor. Get a copy of this enlightening, pithy little book from Amazon right now, and when it arrives, pour yourself a fr, get a copy of this enlightening, pithy little book from Amazon right now. And when it arrives, pour yourself a frothy pint and dig in. You'll be glad you did. All right, thanks for sticking around.

Let's take a look at those five verses which support the church's teaching on relics and why we ought to venerate them. I won't give a lot of explanation on each, but I'll offer them here and you can perhaps write them down or go read them later on. The first comes from 2 Kings 13, verse 21. And there we read about the man who came into contact with the bones of Elisha. And when he did, he came back to life. So there, I mean, couldn't be any more clear. We see God using the remains of one of his saints to work a miracle. In Matthew 9.20, we read about the woman who came up behind Jesus and touched the tassel on his cloak. And she was suffering from a hemorrhage for 12 years. And when she touched

the fringe of his garment, she was made well. And so, here we see God's miraculous power coming about through the touching of wool or cotton or something. And that would be something we refer to as a second-class relic, right? Not a first-class relic, which is a bone or fingernail or hair, part of the saint, as we saw with Elisha, but an item of clothing. And again, in Matthew 14, 36, we read, and as many as touched it were fully restored to health, right? Referring to the fringe of his garment. In Acts 5, 15 through 16, we read that when Peter passed by, at least his shadow could fall upon these and those who were laying down were cured. That's pretty crazy, right? I mean, think about that. If you knew of a holy person and your mother was sick and you knew you wouldn't be

able to speak to this person, but you wanted this sick loved one of yours to just come into contact with them in some way because you knew that the power of God might come out of them. Imagine laying them down and hoping that their shadow would rest on them. I think a lot of people would probably call you superstitious, but here we go. There's biblical precedent for that. And finally, in Acts 19, 11 through 12, we read that when face cloths or aprons that touched Paul's skin were carried to the sick, their diseases were cured. That's Acts again, Acts 19, 11 through 12. So, the church teaches, and I want to be clear on this, especially for our evangelical friends who might be listening, and even though you see right here in the scripture that there's precedent for this, you might be concerned that, you know, when we wish to touch a relic of a particular saint,

that we think it's the bone that's causing a healing or some sort of miracle. So, I want to be clear, the church teaches that only God can perform a true miracle. We know that God can act either directly or through others. God sometimes even performs miracles, as we've seen here in these verses we read, through inanimate objects in order to show the intercessory power of a particular saint. power of a particular saint. Now, in Roman Catholic churches, it is a custom that a relic of a saint be placed within the altar on which mass is celebrated. So, if you're out there listening to this and think, well, gee, I'd love to see a relic or venerate a relic, maybe the first thing you could do is call up your local parish and ask them if they have a relic of a saint in their altar.

And even if they don't have one in their altar, they might have one in the church that you can go and pray before. It's a beautiful practice. Thank you so much, everybody, for listening to Pints with Aquinas. Do us a favor and rate us on iTunes. And as i say thanks to everyone who supports the show on patreon here is a little conversation just a couple of minutes that i had with katie about why she supports the show i'm here with katie kuhar did i get that right got it right katie is one of the beautiful souls that is helping keep pints with Aquinas going by donating on Patreon. So I wanted to have her on the show and just say hi. Hi. Hello. How did you hear about Pints with Aquinas? Well, social media. Bam. Came through my newsfeed and I went, wait a minute,

this looks interesting. Thomas Aquinas with a beer in his hand. Right. Yes, good. Now, had you ever read Aquinas before? Yes, a little bit. A tiny, tiny bit. So did you like what you read, or did you find him sort of intimidating? I started to read him a little bit because I chose him as my confirmation saint. Nice. I had no idea who he was, but I found a cool quote by him and thought it was awesome.

So I decided to try to read the Summa. I'm like, I'm going to read the Summa at 16. Anyway, I opened and started reading about the five ways and I was like, this is really cool, but I don't get it. Yeah, totally, totally. You know, it's funny. Isn't it usually a custom? Maybe it's different in America. Doesn't a girl usually choose a girl saint and a boy a boy saint? I don't know. I was allowed to, so I did.

Good for you. Why not? I remember we were told that the saint's name would go after your middle name. I don't know if that's whatever. That was just custom in Australia, Catholics, I guess. So my middle name is Ryan. So I was trying to find a cool middle name, a cool saint name that would go after Ryan.

So I was like Matthew, Ryan, Anthony. Oh, I like that. So that's why I chose Saint Anthony. Isn't that deep? So deep. Yeah. So tell us, I mean, if you don't mind, tell us why you appreciate Pints of the Quietness

and why you think it's worth donating to. Well, I appreciate it because for me as a stay-at-home mom of small children, I don't have enough brain power to read the Summa on my own. Like I can't do it. But I really want to understand right why how you could think about talking about how god exists and how you could prove that with logic and reason and i just really appreciate the the examples in the breakdown just little tiny bites for my stay-at-home mom mind awesome that's cool yeah thank you so much i was trying to do that trying to bring like

sometimes points the you know aquinas seems kind of daunting so i'm like well give the man a beer and see how he sounds after that thanks very much i really appreciate it you're welcome thank you so much for listening to pints with aquinas you guys are amazing i appreciate all of the tweets and instagram posts and stuff that's going on we got a great lineup great lineup of podcasts coming up, great topics, great interviews. Thanks again. God bless you. Chat next week. Bye. Who's gonna survive?

Who's gonna survive?