mistress of the vatican.pdf - End Time Deception

Mistress of the Vatican
Her corpse was surprisingly well preserved, with skin and hair intact.
Over several days before the sacred body was reburied, thousands streamed
into the church to see it.
The phrase “odor of sanctity” has its origins in reports that certain
saintly bodies, when dug up, were not only intact but also exuded the
delicate fragrance of roses. A rank, rapidly deteriorating corpse, on the
other hand, was the mark of God’s displeasure. Catholics were delighted
to hear that no sooner had Martin Luther died in 1546 than his
body turned black and began to stink, a sure sign of a quick trip south
to a very hot place.
The body parts of saints were called first-class relics. Some Italian
churches boasted magnificent first-class items—drops of the Virgin
Mary’s breast milk, the foreskin of Jesus’ penis, and his umbilical cord.
Other churches offered second-class relics, articles that had been intimately
connected with the holy person during his or her life. One Roman
church exposed Jesus’ cradle from the manger, and another the
marble pedestal on which Pontius Pilate had had him flogged.
In the Vatican itself was the lance that the Roman centurion Longinus
used to pierce the Savior’s side on the cross; a portrait of Christ on
the handkerchief of Saint Veronica, which she had used to wipe the
sweat from his face as he carried the cross; and the papal throne of Saint
Peter (though carbon dating recently determined that it was, in fact,
from the ninth century).
Across Europe, many churches and lucky individuals had splinters of
the true cross on which Jesus had been crucified. The cross had been
brought to Rome in about a.d. 327 by Constantine’s mother, the devout
empress Helena, who had purchased it on a relic-shopping trip to Jerusalem.
There the empress had been approached by a group of Jews who
claimed to know where the cross had been hidden centuries earlier.
Considering the cruelty with which the Roman emperors had walloped
Middle Eastern Jews—obliterating more than a million, and knocking
down their holy Jerusalem temple—we can only hope that as Helena
sailed back to Rome, those who sold her the cross were not laughing,
imagining Constantine’s mother worshipping a piece of rotten wood
they had buried the night before.
[ 241 ]