Michelle here.
Unlike Mark Shea, who has confessed to his Northern European squeamishness over relics, I happen to love them and to enjoy a lot of the folk piety of Catholics throughout history. But even I have to admit that a report of a Polish Dominican friar trying to obtain a recording of John Paul II’s heartbeat for playback at a Christmas Mass is just, uhm, how shall I say it gently … weird.
"A Polish Dominican monk [sic] has asked the Rome clinic that treated John Paul II to give him recordings of the late pope’s heartbeat, which he hopes to play to ardent Catholics at Christmas midnight mass.
"’For years, our hearts beat for him. Today, we want to symbolically listen to his heart,’ Brother Jan Gora was quoted by the Glos Wielkopolski daily as saying.
"’We have taken the first steps’ to obtaining recordings of the heartbeat of John Paul II, who died on April 2 in his private apartment at the Vatican, after being hospitalised at the Gemelli Clinic, he said.
"If Brother Gora obtains the recording, the late Polish-born pope’s heartbeat will be played back during the Agnus Dei at midnight mass in Lednica, in southwestern Poland."
(Nod to Mark and to Amy Welborn for the link. Be sure to see the discussion of the story over at Amy’s.)
My guess is that John Paul II would be flattered but insist that the sound of his heartbeat is not an appropriate liturgical hymn and that the congregation’s focus ought really to be directed to the Eucharist.
Creepy.
I’m sorry, but well intentioned or no, listening to a recording of a deceased person’s heartbeat to gin up some emotion is just weird on so many levels.
Why don’t they just read a passage from one of his encyclicals, or a portion of a homily?
If I sat around on the anniversary of my Dad’s death watching a video of his EKG, I think it would be time to call in the men in the white coats.
That’s insane.