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.
