Ebur Castitatis

Extract

When the Church pays honour to the remains of the Saints, when, for example, she translates them with pomp and ceremony, she wishes not only to invite us to venerate their relics, but also to draw a lesson from their memory. Even when for mere social or natural reasons we gather round an illustrious tomb, there is not just homage to be paid, but also a lesson to be learnt. On a tombstone we read at a glance the whole story of a life, its chief moral features and its meaning. In this we find one of the many reasons that justify the veneration of relics. At the first translation of the body of St. Dominic, so touchingly described by Blessed Jordan, there took place a wonderful manifestation of the merits of the holy Patriarch's life. The miraculous perfume which clung to the hands of Blessed Jordan was a lesson as well as a testimony. Lesson and testimony—both teaching and attesting his admirable purity. But to seize the full meaning of that lesson, we must connect that heavenly testimony with the last recommendations of St. Dominic on his death-bed.

Just as St. Francis, when dying, desired to be laid naked on the ashes, so St. Dominic on his death-bed, by an act of sublime simplicity, strips his soul before our eyes. It is sad to see modern historians, blind to the beauty of that scene, toning down its most striking features. Père Lacordaire is perhaps among the few who have gauged its true significance.