BEATIFICATION OF ARCHBISHOP ROMERO,
MAY 23, 2015
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| Photo courtesy Msgr. Rafael Urrutia. |
Faithful can
now obtain third class relics of Blessed Archbishop Oscar Romero from the San
Salvador Archdiocese canonization office.
Prayer cards that contain a piece of cloth that has been touched to Romero’s
vestments are available through the canonization office.
As explained
by Catholic News Service: “A first-class
relic is the physical bodily remains of a saint or blessed like bones, blood
and hair; a second-class relic is a personal possession, such as clothing,
devotional objects, handwritten letters or even furniture; and a third-class
relic is an object that has touched a first-class relic. These — usually small
snips of cloth that have touched a blessed or saint’s tomb — often end up in
public distribution fixed onto prayer cards.”
Blessed
Romero was killed by a gunshot through the heart while he was celebrating Mass
on March 24, 1980. The vestments he was
wearing were soaked in blood. His gray
clerical shirt was featured prominently during the Romero beatification in May
in San Salvador. The shirt was carried
in ceremonial procession up to the altar where it was incensed and venerated. After the beatification, the shirt was sent
to various churches in El Salvador for veneration. (The shirt is seen in the right hand side of the masthead of this blog.)
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| Photo courtesy San Francisco Te Ve. |
Out of concern
for the integrity of the garment, the shirt was recently replaced with a much
smaller piece of cloth containing Romero’s blood which was placed in a new
reliquary to be sent around in El Salvador.
This cloth is not from Romero’s vestments, but from the white linen
cloth (called the corporal) upon which the Eucharistic chalice had been placed
during Romero’s final Mass. The new
reliquary also contains a miter (bishop’s head garb) worn by Romero. The Salvadoran Church intends to send these
relics to every parish in El Salvador, and to the cathedrals in the other
Central American capitals. The pilgrimage will last three years.
Unfortunately,
there was a lot of Romero’s blood produced on that fateful Monday evening in
March 1980. The killer’s bullet impacted
Romero’s heart, triggering profuse bleeding through the entry wound in Romero’s
chest, as well as through his mouth and nostrils, after his lungs filled with
blood. Some of the most haunting
photographs of the scene show the nuns who worked in the hospital in whose
chapel Romero was killed cleaning up his blood after his body was taken away. They appeared to be conscious of its
sacredness, picking it up in white sheets, rather than just mopping it up with
ordinary cleaning equipment. Fragments
of those sheets were given away as treasured relics to Romero devotees for
years.
Those who
wish to obtain a third class relic of Blessed Romero should contact the
canonization office. The office is open Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. to Noon local
time. The phone number is: Country Code
+503, 2234-5347. Email: milagrosbeatoromero@gmail.com.
