I blogged some of this earlier, but I re-post it here with some additions and minor changes since it essentially completes one of the segments of the conversion story I started this blog to document :).

My wife and I were travelling full steam towards an entrance into Holy Mother Church when our train was violently derailed by learning of incorrupt saints. At first we were horrified to think that people actually kept deceased saints on display for centuries. The fact that they were incorrupt seemed almost a sign that something was wrong ... really wrong. Research of this led us into the realm of relics. This seemed even worse. Martyrs were divided up into pieces and sent around to the various churches for the purpose of veneration. Why was this? Why did it seem so foreign and wrong to this Protestant American?

First, I should explain my reservation. Dead people creep me out. There is something seemingly dirty about death that I really think is at the root of what bothers us about this. Most people rather avoid passing by a casket at a wake. We prefer to distance ourselves as far as possible from the deceasesd seemingly for fear that we too might catch whatever it is that killed the person lying in the casket. Second, the flesh seems so much lesser than the spirit that the idea of degrading it to the point of it being worthless is a very common idea amongst particularly Protestants. Essentially, it is a corrupt mindset about the body and more significantly, about the physical.

What careened this hurdle into the recesses of my past?

First off relics and veneration of such was a historically observable fact of early Christianity. From the time of Polycarp we can see that the Church has kept remains and other items owned by or used by martyrs and Holy men and women of the Church. An excerpt from the Martyrdom of Polycarp (156 AD) best illustrates this principle:

Accordingly, we afterwards took up his bones, as being more precious than the most exquisite jewels, and more purified than gold, and deposited them in a fitting place, whither, being gathered together, as opportunity is allowed us, with joy and rejoicing, the Lord shall grant us to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom, both in memory of those who have already finished their course, and for the exercising and preparation of those yet to walk in their steps.(Source)

Since the historical continuity of doctrine was one of the primary reasons that I felt I must become Catholic, this early indication of such carried great weight with me.

Second was the fact that there were clear indications in scripture of God using items, like bones, garments and even shadows to affect persons in a very real way. (1)

2 Kings 13:20-21: “So Elisha died, and they buried him. Now bands of Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year. 21 And as a man was being buried, lo, a marauding band was seen and the man was cast into the grave of Elisha; and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood on his feet.”

Acts 5:15-16: “. . . they even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and pallets, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them. 16 The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.”

Acts 19:11-12: “And God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, 12 so that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.” (cf. Mt 9:20-22)

Third, I came to recognize the false dichotomy that I had maintained between spirit and matter. This was even more intriguing from my standpoint because I had managed to conquer this objection in my study on the sacraments. Earlier, I posted about my lifelong affirmation of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. To me this naturally follows from the Incarnation. The same holds with baptism. What I wanted to do with relics was say that God couldn't do what Catholics claimed He could do with relics, especially in the case of the incorrputables. What this required of me was a total conversion to the idea of sacrament. I had to get over the idea that there is some kind of division between matter and spirit. I think this is a problem that exists in Americans as a whole. Europeans are not so squeamish about the dead, I think, because they have deeper Catholic roots. The division of matter and spirit is not a new idea though. It seems every major heresy from the dawn of time made the basic assumption that matter was evil and that the spirit was good and that none shall the two meet. The Incarnation is the single biggest indication that there is fault with that idea. To further find fault, from a Christian perspective, one only need look at Genesis. To summarize:

God created and it was GOOD.

Further understanding of what evil is, as taught by the Church, reveals even more clearly this truth. "Evil is the privation (or absence) of good." (paraphrase from Augustine) Nothing created by God is in and of itself evil. Few Protestants would disagree, yet the dichotomy exists in the minds of so many ... It did with me.

What the Protestant convert has to struggle through is understanding the purpose of these "things" Catholics have. Statues, rosaries, relics, stained glass. All of them are things we can use as aids to piety. We do not worship them because they can do nothing for us and they themselves have no power.

But God can work through them. That is the lesson I had to learn ...

The final realization about the incorruptables was that this falls perfectly in line with the idea of the resurrection of the body which is something we recite in the Nicene Creed every Sunday. Death was defeated by Christ and in that it took that we can rest assured that this is a power that Satan does not have. That is why it is most assuredly of God that these things happen. Why did God choose to give us these type miracles? That is beyond the scope of this little brain of mine ... but there they are.