Oddities Abound

Maybe you think because I work with the church that I love all things related. The truth is I have seen enough religious art to, as we say in my family, gag a maggot. The last visit to the Cathedral changed all that. 

Living in Vienna we have guests come through and enjoy taking them to see our lovely city.  One of the main stops is the Cathedral downtown, a building that is both impressive and lovely, a building with history and passion, a building worth seeing.  Even with all those superlatives, a person can get tired saying the same things, pointing out the same objects, so my daughter took along our tour book and read about it again.  That unearthed the big discovery. 

            “Mom,  it says that in the chapel on the left, the Jesus has a beard of human hair and legend has it that the beard is still growing.”  We hoofed it over to the nook and there hung a human sized statue with a black fuzzy beard.  We wrinkled our noses. Creepy. Ick. Who thinks up this stuff?  Do I want to know?

            We ended up at the Cathedral three days in a row and each time I went over to see the bearded Jesus statue.  A tradition is born, when I go to this church, everyone gets to see not only the Lord of our Toothache, at the same Cathedral, but also the Bearded Jesus.  Now creepy art gets its meaning, humorous entertainment for the tour guide.

            Discussing this creepy side show in a lovely garden over pink cupcakes and raspberry cordial, I began to realize that this isn’t the only strange religious artifact.  Oddities abound and I am now on the hunt for them. They are my new selection of  blog fodder.

            In the same Cathedral we found more relics than any saint had on them personally. Many of these are made with bone fragments, decorated with gold. The most unusual, this trip, is a scapula, aka, hip bone, decorated with Jewels around the edge, lots of them.  I am all for bling, but on an old pelvis?

            Catacombs are always a good source for gross. This cathedral has many of the entrails of royalty submerged in alcohol and sealed in urns, large ones for large people, small for small ones.  Since this has been the practice for the past 700 years, and the technology has changed greatly, it is no surprise that occasionally they start leaking. This is not only creepy, but stinky too. Also in the catacombs are rooms just filled floor to ceiling with human bones.

            Bones in their essence must be creepy, just like the word belly button in its essence is funny.  We went to one church in the Czech republic that was completely decorated with human bones, including the chandelier, and the shields of knights on the wall, giving a whole new meaning to the words, “Coat of Arms.”

            Sometimes the stuff in churches isn’t creepy, just strange. One church here sells holy water by vending machine. I mentioned this as we and walked past the bowl of holy water (free) leaving our Cathedral.  At that same moment, a woman dipped her finger in the water and dabbed it behind her ears like perfume.  Maybe she felt a little stinky and unholy from being in the catacombs. Still, I was glad she didn’t bathe in it, THAT would have been creepy.