Holy Relics – a Supportive Prayer

I accept and understand that the bodies of deceased persons deserve a proper burial on the outskirts of cities and that their remains should be entrusted to Almighty God. I accept and understand that the bones and remains of the deceased should rest in peace, and that their exhumation should serve to relocate a grave, not to display or carry around the remains of a human body. I have completely forgiven everyone through whom I prayed to various counterfeit holy relics.

I have completely forgiven everyone who cannot distinguish what is religious from what is focused on anomalies, or even from what comes from God.

I forgive myself for wondering what will happen at the resurrection to the parts of a saint’s body scattered throughout various temples.

I have completely forgiven everyone who, despite having doubts about the propriety of venerating particular remains, promoted them against their conscience and against the dignity of others.

I have completely forgiven everyone who, by means of a pendulum, channeling, magic and other occult methods, determines the effectiveness of a saint’s activity, the powers of others, the beneficial influence of relics upon people and their Souls, and who measures the benefits flowing from prayers.

I have completely forgiven everyone who dislikes praying through deceased persons, and especially through the intercession of all the saints. I have completely forgiven everyone who doubts that these powers remain in the remains of a saint and even in such relics as burning candles or objects rubbed against the bones of the deceased. I have completely forgiven everyone who mocks the idea that the deceased activates his own spiritual powers with a movement of the hand or with a single word and that he is treated like a container of magical powers.

I completely forgive myself for taking pleasure in macabre decorations and macabre surroundings; I also forgive myself for creating a macabre living space for myself and others. I have completely forgiven everyone who promoted as relics salt originating from the tears of thousands of angels. I have completely forgiven everyone who smells corpses and the bodies of the deceased in order to find those that smell of flowers, roses or violets; I also forgive those who determine the signs of someone else’s holiness in precisely this way. I have completely forgiven everyone who, even in modern times, organises exhibitions of corpses, their parts, their mummies and more in various galleries.

I completely forgive myself for allowing a hunger for miracles to become a source of worries and even personal torment for me. I have completely forgiven everyone who places human bones and fragments of corpses on altars, keeps them at home in a place of honour or carries them around while expecting support and protection.

I completely forgive myself for personally bringing various corpses back to life in relics, giving them a second, long life, almost like an eternal resurrection. I completely forgive myself for believing that some false relic or counterfeit holy image will deceive uneducated and simple people and entangle them in the nets of heretics or idolaters.

I completely forgive myself for treating corpses or their fragments, and for perceiving a saint, like a genie or a sorcerer whose power is now worth examining because he can no longer cause harm.

I accept my own investigations and those of others intended to determine whether the cult of saints serves evangelisation or constitutes an obstacle to God’s work of salvation. I have completely forgiven everyone who considers whether resurrection takes place in new bodies, when the resurrected person is already someone different from the one who died as a saint. I have completely forgiven everyone who turned the cult of holy relics into a continuation of a corpse’s certain and extended life. I have completely forgiven everyone who would not carry around the foot or tooth of their own great-grandfather, yet would willingly do this with various saints, appropriating skeletons and waving them in every direction.

I accept that many cultures and civilisations regard those who touch corpses as spiritually unclean, as pariahs and as untouchables who should live, or who do live, outside society. I have completely forgiven everyone who removes bodies or their fragments, or even the remaining remnants of corpses, from graves with their bare hands; I also restore freedom to everyone who breaks the fundamental taboos and prohibitions against touching corpses and who breaks the prohibition against inhaling the odour of decomposing bodies, even those of persons regarded as saints. I have completely forgiven all grave robbers who desecrate and plunder graves, cemeteries and the remains of the deceased, and I forgive everyone who earns a living in this way, supporting themselves by filling vacant places in the labour market.

I restore freedom to everyone willing to live with their entire family, to eat, sleep and drink in cemeteries and on graves, as people now do in the Philippines or in Cairo. I restore freedom to everyone who longs to spend life beside corpses or in catacombs, as Syrian holy martyrs and saints of antiquity, among others, once did.

I have completely forgiven everyone who sets the nets of idolatry and catches the naïve to their ruin. I restore freedom to everyone who promotes incorrupt corpses, suggesting that deceased martyrs continue to live perfectly within them and are doing well, as supposedly confirmed by materialised miracles and healings.

I have completely forgiven everyone who laughs at the powerlessness of images or holy relics. I have completely forgiven everyone who recoils from contact with ordinary corpses but eagerly seeks to touch or kiss corpses that have received extensive media publicity. I have completely forgiven everyone who promotes human remains burdened with symbolism as containers of magical power or carriers of some vaguely defined potency. I have completely forgiven everyone who is interested in magical power that brings good fortune and flows from a fragment of a skeleton, and who takes over this power through touch. I have completely forgiven everyone who put reason to sleep when seized by a passion for taking power from relics, where larger relics—especially shinbones, entire limbs or a skull—enjoy greater popularity than threads torn from clothing, hair or blackened skin.

I have completely forgiven everyone who followed with a sickle to cut off something for themselves when news spread of the illness or imminent death of a holy martyr. I have completely forgiven everyone who deceived me and other simple, uneducated people, entangling us, among other things, in idolatry and heresy. I have completely forgiven everyone who connects a saint’s activity with the location of his remains or with the distance from the corpse, assuming that the strength of the influence and the power of holiness diminish as the distance increases. I have completely forgiven everyone who feels disgust at living near graves, the deceased and various cemeteries, and who avoids temples because of the stench of corpses or the stuffiness coming from holy relics. I have completely forgiven everyone who proclaimed that the death of holy persons differs from the death of ordinary people. I completely forgive myself for the inquisitiveness that brought me the knowledge that the anatomical structure of holy persons is the same as that of other people and that the processes of decomposition of corpses and illness proceed similarly in everyone, unless God is asked for even greater torment.

I have completely forgiven everyone who buried the founders of cities and settlements in the market square so that they would constitute a never-drying source and carrier of regional power and prosperity. I have completely forgiven everyone who, upon hearing the joyful news that further priceless remains had been found, drew crowds to a new source of miracles.

Fragments

Opublikowano: 21/08/2026
Autor: Sławomir Majda
Kateogrie: Religions, priests, sects, idolatry, vows.

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