Some Things Stay the Same

Many things will be brand new in the renovated Holy Redeemer Church, but the altar stone will be the same. The altar stone is a square of marble placed under where the priest places the paten and chalice while celebrating Mass. Embedded in the stone is a tiny relic of the bone of a saint. This practice dates back to when persecuted Christians had to celebrate Mass hiding in the Roman Catacombs. They would use the top of the tomb of one of the early martyrs as their altar.

Our altar stone contains a relic of St. Fulgentius of Ruspe. St. Fulgentius isn't exactly the first saint to come to mind, like St. Francis of Assissi or St.Nicholas, but he played a critical role in the early Church and still contributes to our faith today. Fulgentius, like the great St. Augustine,  lived in modern-day Tunisia in North Africa in the 5th and 6th Centuries. He, too, received his education in Italy but returned to Africa, where he assumed the civic role of a procurator. Fulgentius tired of the material life and, in 499, decided to become a hermit.   

His administrative capacity caused him to be assigned the duties of managing the temporal affairs of the monastery. Soon, he was made Bishop of Ruspe in present-day Tunisia. Arianism, the heresy that denied the divinity of Jesus, was afflicting the Church, and Fulgentius' opposition to it caused him great suffering. He was exiled to the island of Sardinia several times because of his opposition to the Arian heretics but eventually returned to Ruspe, where he died on January 1, 527 or 533. 

Some of Fulgentius' writings and sermons, which oppose Arianism and defend the true faith, survive and contribute to theology today. The Divine Office, part of the Liturgy of the Hours prayed by priests and religious, includes about a dozen excerpts from his writings.  

St. Fulgentius relics commonly turn up in our diocese. Two parishes where I have previously been pastor also have his relic in their altars. I'd guess it is because St. Fulgentius' bones were moved from Tunisia, now a Muslim country, to the tiny village of Bouvines, France, on the Belgian border in 1903. I'd guess that when Church officials did that, they decided to take a few fragments and distribute them as relics. The Fall River Diocese was founded in 1904, and maybe St. Fulgentius relics were sent to us for new churches here. I don't know, but it sounds plausible. 

Continuing to have the St. Fulgentius relic in our new altar ties us to our church's past in the renovated Holy Redeemer and the ancient Church when it was still in its early years.