Pictures from 2006 Ghent IP, Part 3B (or: Brugge:Lace, Blood, and Chocolate)

I keep jumping around chronologically with my posts, and apologize for that. I will do my best to note when and where things happened, because more than one person (myself included) has confused “Ghent” and “Graz”. The following events happened during the Ghent IP in Brugge, Belgium:

After we looked at the depressing Our Lady's Church, it was time for some good ol’ consumerism: shopping. I desperately needed a chocolate fix, and Sarah needed some gifts for friends & family back home. We found a chocolate shop with superb chocolates and sub-par service, but good lace was trickier to find. After checking several shops, we happened upon the most talkative shop keeper I’ve seen yet. More impressive, he was trained by nuns in Brugge at the now defunct lace making school. Going to lace making school ensured that he was the only boy in a class of all girls (woo hoo!). The disadvantage is that he was teased constantly by them. Oh, girls can be so cruel! Fortunately, he survived, and demonstrated his lace-making skills for us: There he is working on one of his creations. Sarah is looking in awe while Kerry is taking a movie. His hands moved so quickly. Here’s a close-up: Each one of those wooden dowels is a bobbin of thread that must not be confused with any of the other bobbins. And look at all those pins!

Now for the blood part of the title: There is a church in Brugge called the Chapel of the Holy Blood. It contains a religious relic, a rock crystal bottle purported to have Jesus’ blood in it. This fascinated me, especially in light of modern genetic technology. We could analyze the DNA of Jesus! We could clone him! We could find out if he was predisposed to obesity! I’ll stop blaspheming and get on with the story.

When we arrived in the church, a priest was standing next to the altar reading in several languages a story about the blood, and how the faithful are allowed to venerate it. Another priest sat behind an altar with this gold-capped glass tube in front of him. Here is the best image I have of the relic: Since I didn’t want to disrespect the Church of the Holy Blood with my camera, that photo is a picture of a picture outside the church. The church was very solemn and quiet, and there weren’t many tourists inside, since the church had just opened for the day. Kerry, Sarah, and I whispered to each other to find out who was going to venerate the relic.

First off, to “venerate” the relic, you had to wait in line behind others. Venerating really just meant standing in front of the relic, however you were allowed to touch it with both hands. As I stood in line, a large sign informed me in several languages that I must show respect for the relic. I had already taken off my coat, hat and backpack, so I was about as presentable as I was gonna get for touching Jesus’ blood. As the line moved and I got closer to the relic, there was a coin box for donations. I figured that I should probably give them some money for their troubles, so I dropped in a few coins, less than a Euro total. The line moved, and I shuffled closer to the relic. Each time a person finished venerating the relic, the priest sitting behind the altar would wipe it off with a small white cloth. Then the next person would take their place in front of the relic, and the process repeated. I didn’t really believe that what I was about to do had any religious or spiritual significance, but I find the idea of relics interesting. And, if it turned to really be Jesus’ blood, I wanted to be able to say “I touched it”. It’s like saying you’ve been to Mount Rushmore or something.

It was my turn. I had been watching the people in front of me to see where they placed their hands, how long they spent touching it, and what they did afterwards. I decided to go with a two handed touch, about 5 seconds long, and cross myself afterwards. Yes, I crossed myself, and it didn’t really feel right since I’m not Catholic. However, I was in a Catholic church, touching a religious relic, and I didn’t want to be disrespectful towards anyone’s beliefs. Besides, venerating a religious relic isn’t a sacrament in the Catholic church, so I wasn’t invading those tricky beliefs.

While looking for some links for this blog post, I found this one, which says that the relic probably isn’t Jesus’ blood at all, but a perfume bottle that came from Turkey in the 11th or 12th century. This leads to all sorts of other questions, such as: if the relic is false, why is it still on display?

This church was incredibly ornate, and I wish we had spent more time in it. Wandering around while people were venerating the relic didn’t feel quite right, though, so we left. On our way out, we ran into Alex and Sara, two students in the Intensive Program from Germany. We waited for them to finish in the church, and then headed over to the Belfry, my favorite part of the visit to Brugge. That post will have to wait, however. I need to get some breakfast!