Every single day, or whenever I want to have another look, even several times a day, I am able to gaze upon the preserved body of Kim Jong Il through the wonders of the internet.
Kim joins a group of illustrious, preserved dictators: Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
From the Washington Post.
Sorry, Mimi, but these things always uncomfortably remind me of salad bars, complete with sneeze-guard. No disrespect, as they say in jersey...
ReplyDeleteTobias, I think you've spioled salad bars for me forever. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI have never understood these to me obscene, displays of deceased Marxists.
ReplyDeleteFWIW
jimB
Jim, it's the Marxist form of worship...honoring their 'heroes'. Religion will out.
ReplyDeleteWhen I visited Moscow in the 80s there was a mandatory tour of Lenin's tomb with the hour plus wait in line. Two friends and I bailed and went on a boat trip instead. Surprised we didn't get stopped, but we had a great afternoon drinking beer and exploring on our own. Fortunately one of us spoke Russian (not me).
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I were traveling through northern Italy and stopped at the church of San Zeno in Verona. There, in the narthex, was St. Zeno himself in a glass box, pretty much dead since AD 380. Then we got to Venice, and in St. Mark's Cathedral Church there, we saw cupboards full of holy fingers and body parts. All in what you're used to.
ReplyDeleteAmelia, you and your friends did the far better thing. I'm surprised you were not stopped. You could be in Siberia!
ReplyDeleteMurdoch, religious relics are far from my favorite thing. I immediately thought of the relics of supposed body parts of Christian saints when I read the article in the Post.
Mimi, I was surprised too.
ReplyDeleteDead dictator on a floral display is no weirder than dead saint (or saint part) on display in church.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing the head of St. Catherine of Siena in a fresh wimple in San Domenico in Siena.
I always wondered just how many arms St. John the Baptist really had.
And the True Cross must have been humungous.
ReplyDeleteI served for a year in an old Dominican parish/shrine. The church seated 2000 people, but the neighborhood had gone from working class to inner city. In the basement was a shrine to St. Anne and an area used as a chapel with floor to almost the ceiling decorated with crutches and canes left by people who no longer needed them. We used to bring the kids over from the school for various paraliturgy and Penance services.
ReplyDeleteOne day, one of these restless and curious kids slipped away to the back of the basement and found a full, human-sized waxed doll represented the Native American Saint- Katerina Something-or-other under glass just as pictured above.
That kid came flying out of that area with eyes as big as the proverbial saucers :>) Of course that was pretty much the end of the activity that had been planned as we had to 'go and see' and the priest had some 'splaining to do for sure! I guess you could expect it in the west or northwest, but in staid Massachusetts??? :>)
nij
Nij, did the relic look like St Valerie, that is/was in our local St Joseph Co-cathedral? Scroll down to see a picture of the bier, or whatever it is. It frightened my children when they were young. Hell, it frightened me when I was grown-up. The figure of the saint appears to be writhing.
ReplyDeleteOh no, no writhing in our case. St. K. was serenely lying out straight just like the gentleman in red. It was spooky enough in the dimly lighted corner of the basement, hard to imagine actually being in the upper church, what an amazing idea! The co-cathedral is beautiful in an ornate way. Strange, there is ornate that is 'de trop' and awful and then there is ornate that is gently beautiful like the co-cathedral. Lovely pics!
ReplyDeletenij
Nij, serene is better than writhing, surely. I haven't been to the church recently to note if the case is still on display, but I rather think there would be a hue and cry from some of the older folks if the case was removed.
ReplyDelete