Saints & Martyrs Bodies - Saint Louis, Missouri

Sisters of  St. Joseph of Carondelet Motherhouse in St. Louis, Missouri Houses Entire Bodies of 7 Early Saints

http://www.ichrusa.com/saintsalive/motherhouse.html 

The Motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet is located in South St. Louis.
Restored and renovated in 2000, the motherhouse is filled with rich history and sacred spaces glorified with architectural and artisan details.

Onsite tours are held by appointment only for individuals or groups.
For a tour, contact the motherhouse at:
Phone:  314-678-0411
or email cfilla@csjsl.org
Tours will be on hiatus August, September and October, 2014.

Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet
6400 Minnesota Avenue
St. Louis, Missouri 63111-2899
Phone: 314-481-8800

First-time visitors simply stop & stare, not quite believing what they see. Tucked away in a corner of a chapel are the skeletons of 7 saints & martyrs from the earliest days of Christianity. Three of the saints are Romans whose remains are elaborately clothed; they're displayed in glass & wood coffins.
But they aren't at some historical church in Europe. They are here. The saints have been under glass for nearly a century at the motherhouse of the Sisters of  St. Joseph of Carondelet in south St. Louis.
Experts say it is one of the most rare collections of holy relics in the country. Many other shrines contain only small bone fragments of saints, not the entire remains. 

"It's so rare to see anything like that anymore," said the Rev. Paul Niemann, a liturgical specialist for the Archdiocese of St. Louis.  

St. Anthony's Chapel in Pittsburgh claims to have the largest collection in the U.S. with 4,000 relics; the Maria Stein Chapel outside Cincinnati says it has about 600. But both of those have only one saint's entire body. The saints may also be one of the best-kept secrets in St. Louis because the chapel is not open to the public. The sisters frequently give tours but only upon request.

St. Aurelia, St. Discolius & St. Nerusia Euticia are the 3 Roman saints given a full display. The skulls, teeth & separated bones of 2 other early martyrs, St. Berenice & St. Berisimus, are behind 2 glass cases on each side of the altar. Behind closed marble doors within the altar are the skulls & bones of 2 more martyrs, St. Vincent & St. Aurelius. And in 5 glass niches along the front of the altar are single bones, each of them carefully wrapped in gauze, from 70 other saints.

Aurelia & Discolius were said to be child martyrs originally buried in the Catacombs. St. Nerusia Euticia was a young noblewoman of Rome in the second century, according to documents the sisters obtained from the Vatican. The skeletons of all 3 are wrapped in gauze, through which the bones can be seen in the hands & feet. They're dressed in blue-&-gold brocade  Roman tunics & hair wreaths. They have wax over their faces, which gives them a doll-like appearance.

St. Berisimus is believed to have died at the age of 8 in the Coliseum during the reign of Antoninus Pius. St. Berenice was put to death by the sword. Euticia & Discolius have stone slab tombstones with their names in crudely lettered Latin that are said to have been taken from the Catacombs. The stone slabs hang next to each of their coffins.

How they came here

The story begins in 1861 with the arrival of the body of St. Aurelia. She had been in the private chapel of Pope Pius IX, & she was sent as a gift from the pope to Mother Superior St. John Facemaz. St. Aurelia rests in a glass coffin under the center of the altar. Little is known about her. According to the motherhouse records, she was a child martyr  whose body was taken from the Catacombs during the term of Pope Pius IX  in the 1800s. 

The rest of the collection was brought to St. Louis in 1878 by Mother Superior Agatha Guthrie. Mother Agatha, one of the most dynamic & popular leaders in the order's history, also was keenly interested in the lives of the church's martyrs. When she went to Rome on religious business in the fall of 1877, she met an Italian priest who was a friend of Count Nicholas Savorelli Prati, descended from an old Italian family. The Savorelli family had a chapel in Forli, Italy, which contained a rich treasury of relics taken from the Catacombs & given to the family in the early 1800s by Pope Pius VII. 

That was a time of anti-Catholic sentiment, especially in France, & Pius VII ordered a number of the martyrs' bodies removed for safe-keeping. In fact, the nuns' documents show that most of the martyrs at Carondelet were taken from the Catacombs on orders of Pope Pius VII in 1802 & 1803. 

Apparently it took some doing, but the Italian priest, Father Pietro Marchionni, convinced Count Savorelli Prati to give 9 entire bodies from the chapel to Mother Agatha. When she returned to St. Louis, Mother Agatha gave a martyr's body to each of the order's provincial houses in Los Angeles, St. Paul, Minn., & Albany, N.Y. She kept the remaining 6 in St. Louis. With St. Aurelia, they make 7.  

The Sisters of St. Joseph will answer any question about the martyrs.