🙏After having celebrated the glory of all the saints in heaven, the Church dedicates this day to honoring their holy relics, the fragments of their bodies that remained on earth as seeds of immortality, awaiting the glorious resurrection. This veneration dates back to the earliest days of Christianity, when the faithful celebrated the Holy Mysteries on the tombs of the martyrs in the catacombs, uniting their sacrifice with the Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary. Over time, grand basilicas were erected over the mortal remains of the most celebrated martyrs, with the main altar, or "Confession," positioned directly over their tomb. The practice of translating relics became an essential rite in the dedication of a new church, and the custom of inserting relics of martyrs into the altar stone, in the so-called "sepulcrum," perpetuates this tradition. The Mass for this feast, established in the 19th century, is largely inspired by the Common of Martyrs, which is why the priest wears red vestments. The liturgy reminds us that, just as a healing power emanated from the body of Jesus, so too does God deign to work wonders through the relics of His saints, who now glorify Him in heaven, healing the sick, casting out demons, and granting graces, as witnesses to the power of God who sanctified their bodies.
📜Epistle (Sir 44:10-15)
These were men of mercy, whose godly deeds have not failed. Their good things remain with their posterity, their children are a holy inheritance, and their seed has stood in the covenants. And for their sakes their children remain for ever: their seed and their glory shall not be forsaken. Their bodies are buried in peace, and their name liveth unto generation and generation. Let the people show forth their wisdom, and the church declare their praise.
🕊️Gospel (Lk 6:17-23)
At that time, Jesus, coming down from the mountain, stood in a plain place, and the company of his disciples, and a very great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the sea coast both of Tyre and Sidon, who were come to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases. And they that were troubled with unclean spirits, were cured. And all the multitude sought to touch him, for virtue went out from him, and healed all. And he, lifting up his eyes on his disciples, said: Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now, for you shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed shall you be when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Be glad in that day and rejoice; for behold, your reward is great in heaven.
✝️Reflections
⛪Today's Gospel presents a scene of profound theological significance: a power (virtus) went out from the body of Our Lord Jesus Christ and healed everyone. This manifestation of divine power through the sacred body of the Incarnate Word is the foundation of the veneration the Church gives to the relics of the saints. If the body of Christ was the source of all healing and holiness, the bodies of His saints, through union with Him, became temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19) and instruments of divine grace. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, echoing Tradition, teaches that "sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church's prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it" (CCC 1670). Relics, as one of the most venerable sacramentals, do not possess power in themselves, but are channels through which, by the intercession of the saints and the will of God, the same virtue that emanated from Christ continues to touch and heal His people. The crowd sought to touch Jesus, demonstrating a faith that recognized the sanctity present in the physical; similarly, the Church venerates the mortal remains of the saints, not out of an attachment to matter, but in recognition that this matter was sanctified by grace and is destined for the glory of the resurrection.
👑The Beatitudes proclaimed by Jesus find their most sublime fulfillment in the lives of the martyrs, whose relics the Church honors with special devotion. "Blessed shall you be when men shall hate you... for the Son of man's sake." This divine promise was the strength that sustained countless Christians in their witness of blood. The Epistle from the Book of Sirach describes them perfectly: "Their bodies are buried in peace, and their name liveth unto generation and generation." The glory the world denied them, God has granted them in abundance in Heaven, and the Church on earth perpetuates their memory. St. Augustine, meditating on the witness of the martyrs, affirms that they conquered not by their own strength, but by the strength of Him who said: "in the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world" (Jn 16:33). The relics of the martyrs are, therefore, trophies of this victory of Christ in them. They are a silent but eloquent sermon that reminds us of the price of discipleship and the reality of the "great reward in heaven." To venerate them is to touch, in a way, the courage of those who lived the Beatitudes to their ultimate consequences, inspiring us also to be faithful amidst the persecutions of our own time.
📖The veneration of relics is a practice deeply rooted in the Church's faith in the Communion of Saints and the resurrection of the flesh. St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa Theologiae, justifies this practice by arguing that it is right to honor those whom God honors. He explains that "the bodies of the Saints were temples and organs of the Holy Ghost, who dwelt and operated in them, and that they are to be conformed to the body of Christ by the glory of the Resurrection. Wherefore God Himself fittingly honors such relics by working miracles in their presence" (Summa Theologiae, III, q. 25, a. 6). Today's reading reinforces this idea of a "holy inheritance," a legacy of faith passed from generation to generation. Relics are a tangible part of this inheritance. They connect us physically to the history of salvation and to our brothers and sisters who have already reached the heavenly homeland. In venerating them, we do not worship ashes or bones, but we praise God for the gift of holiness in that person's life and ask for their intercession, recognizing that they, even in glory, do not forget us. Thus, the crowd that pressed around Jesus on the plain is an icon of the Church of all ages, which approaches the saints, the friends of God, to, through them, touch the hem of Christ's garment and receive the healing that only He can give.
➡️See English version of the critical articles here.
