Dear Editor, I wish to respond to Margaret Ahearne’s letter regarding relics (CI 7/11/13). I am afraid she is very much mistaken that the use of relics is not biblical. In fact, the concept that contact with the bones or other objects once belonging to saints can facilitate miracles goes right back through the Gospel (where in Mt 14:35-36 the sick are healed by touching Jesus’ cloak tassle) to the Old Testament, where coming into contact with Elisha’s bones brought a dead man back to life. She might also find it helpful to look at Acts 19:11-12. Relics are gifts from God that allow us, who are both physical and spiritual beings, to retain tangible contact with the saints whom we one day wish to join in heaven, and are a way of God communicating His grace to us when we approach them in faith and confidence in His goodness, following in the example of the first Christians who reached out to touch Jesus’ cloak. This practice has every place in the Catholic Church, and we should long that our Protestant brethren one day come to see the wonderful gifts we have in things like relics, and, above all, in the Sacraments, the latter allowing us direct contact with Christ Himself in the Eucharist.
Yours etc.,
Angela Costley
Killucan,
Co. Westmeath.
