Sermon preached at the Cathedral Church of St Augustine of Canterbury on the Sunday in the Octave of the Assumption
Is that it?
A little flake
a sixteenth of
a square inch in size?
And you're calling
that a significant relic?
You must be joking!
People might look
at our relic on the Lady Chapel altar
and think just these things.
It's true.
It might be housed
in a very special reliquary
but our relic
is just a tiny, tiny scrap
of material.
It's marginally less underwhelming
than a Mr Whippy ice cream
for dessert at The Ritz.
Until you think about it.
[PAUSE]
Let's be clear.
On Our Lady Chapel altar
is a relic
of Our Lady's veil.
It may be tiny.
But one thing is clear.
However tiny it is.
Our Lady,
the Queen of Heaven,
the Theotokos
the Mother of God
has touched it.
The same hands
as those which nursed
Our Redeemer as a baby
and held His body
taken down from the cross
have touched
that little spot of material.
We have a direct connection
to the truth of the Gospels,
and it is among us.
[PAUSE]
People might think
how silly it is
to get worked up
about a 2000 year-old
fragment of cloth.
But we have every reason to celebrate
especially as there are
no physical relics of Our Lady's body.
No-one has a relic
of Our Lady's body.
The heads of St Peter and St Paul
are in the Vatican.
There are incorrupt bodies of
St Francis Xavier
and St Padre Pio
and others
All the apostles of the New Testament
have bodily relics.
But there are none
of Our Lady.
Not one.
Not even her hair.
What does this tell you?
[PAUSE]
There are no bodily relics
because Our Lady's body
is no longer on Earth.
She has a tomb
in the Garden of Gethsemane,
but it is empty.
This makes
her relic so much more important.
It proves that she exists.
It proves she has a connection with us
despite being in Heaven.
Her veil for us
becomes yet another thread
that ties the reality of Earth
with the reality of Heaven.
Mary is testament
to our salvation.
Whatever Our Lord assumes
that He saves.
He assumes our humanity
to save our humanity.
He assumes our will
to save our will.
He assumes His mother
to save our human family.
And the evidence is there
in our Lady Chapel.
[PAUSE]
But Our Lady still shares
something with us.
She touches her son
at His birth and His death.
And with her,
we touch her son
in the Eucharist.
This is the gift Our Lord
shares with all of us.
In assuming His Mother,
she becomes our Mother
to venerate and honour,
for we must always honour
our father and our mother
as the Lord commands.
And she shares her son with us
and her concern for us
is His concern for us.
[PAUSE]
It may be tiny
but that sixteenth of a square inch,
is evidence of our salvation
and our welcome into
the court of Heaven.
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