καιρός remembered

Holy feet

The fact is that the sacred relics of Saint Francis Xavier are kept in the Bom Jesus Church in Old Goa. They are displayed to the public once every ten years, and I happened to be there when this took place in 2014. Friends warned me that there might be a queue of over a kilometre of people waiting their turn! This made me wonder: was it really worth the trouble just to satisfy my curiosity?

Fortunately, I found a quiet moment one early Sunday morning; it took me just 15 minutes to get in. There, the queue had split in two: one half was being herded at full speed past the left-hand side of the bier, the other half past the right-hand side. No touching, no time for a quick prayer, no photos – just a quick glance as you passed by, and off you go! In this way, the organisers of the SFX exhibition (India loves its abbreviations!) managed to guide more than 5 million people past the bier in 44 days! The marvellous world of humankind and its faith.

And what did all these people get to see? At a stall outside, I bought two photographs taken during the exhibition ten years earlier, which you can see below.

I later found out that SFX’s right forearm, which he used to bless his converts, is kept in Rome, and that another bone from his arm is kept in Macau. So the hand in the photograph is indeed his left hand, and it’s likely that it’s no longer even attached to the body!

Photos of the week: exposition of the sacred relics of St. Francis Xavier, Old Goa, India 2014