Are Religious Objects Mere Stuff?

An interesting question from a reader:
"What about religious artifacts, relics, and icons? I am not sure precisely what religion you'd identify with, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on how this all pertains to, say, a few crosses you have in your house, or some menorahs in the attic. Do we make different stuff-rules for objects from religious value-systems?"


I would be interested to know if there are people with a unique attachment to religious objects. As a practicing Catholic, I've always had such items: crucifix, medals, rosary, etc. For me, these are the same as every other object in my life. I was never taught to treat them as anything other than tools. Most of the ones I own are mementos of people. For example, I have a crucifix on the wall by my bed that used to hang over my grandmother's bed. As a child, I fell asleep looking at it many happy nights. It's a cheap plastic thing I would never buy, but I will always sleep near it. I allow myself this because I think of it as a tool I use every day. I won't get rid of it for the same reason I won't get rid of my food-processor: using it makes it easier for me to practice a healthy lifestyle. That crucifix is something I use. If it were in the attic, it would be stuff.


I do, however, hang on to two rosaries. One is a pretty one I bought because it was beautiful and I wanted to be able to appreciate its beauty when I pray. The other is almost always just sitting in my jewelry box. That one is do treat as a special thing--though still a tool. It is attached, of course, to a story about a loved one who is gone. My uncle was a Jesuit priest who died unexpectedly on a trip that was originally supposed to be a trip to visit me and Brian. Perhaps because I was such an inconsolable wreck at his funeral, I was given his rosary. I have a tendency now to think of it as a special, powerful tool. My whole family and I are natives of New Orleans and so, on the night Hurricane Katrina was bearing down, I prayed for the city using my uncle's rosary. My own rosary is in my purse. I would not carry around my uncle's rosary like that. It could get lost or broken. In that sense, this rosary is connected to fear, what I have said in previous posts I want to free myself from. 


I know perfectly well that my uncle's rosary is just another set of beads. I don't really believe it has any power. But I like to treat it as though it does. And I can only really get away with treating a rosary like this. Because it is a tool for prayer, it is actually useful in connecting with my uncle as he exists now. To explain that, I'll need to explain how Catholics are taught to think about the dead. Our tradition holds that God's people are stretched out across space and time but are always in unbroken connection with each other. This is a reason we sometimes pray to saints--not to worship them, but to ask them to pray for us in the same way I might ask my next-door neighbor to pray for me. Those who are fully in God's presence will have a clarity of mind to pray the proper prayer for me that we on earth may not. So, my faith gives me the opportunity to understand myself to be praying with my uncle when I say the rosary. Using his rosary emphasizes the communal aspect of prayer for me.


Of course, it wouldn't be helpful to me to have a drawer full of rosaries so I can feel myself praying in community with every person I ever lose. It's special for me to have this particular rosary because I believe I have a continuing relationship with my uncle. He lived with a vow of poverty and I am just beginning to understand the wisdom in that. And, at the risk of sounding crazy, I must say I have had my uncle's help in my grieving for the loss of him. He has visited me in dreams that have been sources of enormous comfort and enlightenment. There's another traditional Catholic idea (though a Hindu friend of mine recently expressed a similar belief): visits with the dead in dreams. Certainly, it is entirely reasonable to understand these dreams as simply the workings of my own mind--the stuff and clutter of imagination. But when I treat these dreams as special, I feel peace and love, not fear and anxiety. That is my evidence that this understanding of these dreams is true. On the other hand, when I treat objects as special, I engage with fear. If I grow spiritually, I will eventually want to let go of my uncle's rosary, no doubt. In my examination of it here, I have had to concede that I treat it as special and that connects me to a fear of losing or breaking it. I need to ask myself honestly if knowing it is in my jewelry box brings more peace than fear. I'm not sure it does. Perhaps I'm waiting for the dream in which my uncle shows me how to let go of it in the same way he showed me how to let go of him.