116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Home / Living / People & Places
Local Catholics emotional in honoring relic from late Pope John Paul II
Sep. 6, 2017 11:09 pm, Updated: Sep. 7, 2017 3:03 pm
CEDAR RAPIDS - Like dozens of others, Marlene and Jerome Greiner of Cedar Rapids left St. Patrick's Catholic Church in tears Wednesday afternoon after visiting a reliquary containing a vial of the late Pope John Paul II's blood.
Marlene Greiner said she hopes the Iowans visiting the relic this week leave with 'the feeling that there's still hope in the world. Right now, we really need that.”
In 1979, the Greiners were among the 350,000 who gathered to hear John Paul deliver a Mass at the Living History Farms in Des Moines.
'It was just the feeling among all the crowd that was overwhelming,” Marlene Greiner said, with Jerome adding, 'It was just ... something about it that makes you feel so good.”
Seeing the relic Wednesday was a time to remember that experience and the pope who was 'such an important person,” Marlene Greiner said.
The relic is touring Iowa through Saturday, escorted by members of the Miami, Fla.-based religious institute, Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
The relic is one of only five related to John Paul, who is now a saint, and the only one that travels the world. Before Cedar Rapids, the relic was in Ecuador.
It is deemed a 'first-class relic” because it has a direct connection to a saint. The blood in the vial was drawn in the last months of the pope's life during medical exams, said Sister Grace Marie of the institute.
Hundred visited the relic on Wednesday at St. Patrick's Church. The viewing continues on today to Des Moines and West Des Moines.
Katie Funk of Des Moines helped arrange the Iowa stops after learning through her twin sister, a member of the institute in Miami, that the relic would be in the group's care for a year.
Funk also remembers the pope's visit to Iowa in 1979.
'He was one of these fearless, radical Christians,” Funk said. 'For him being in everyone's life for a majority of their life - because he was pope for a long time - he's just a really good leader for Iowans. ”
John Paul was pope from 1978 until his death in 2005, the second-longest papacy in recent history.
Even now, 'people still flocking to see” a vial of his blood, Funk said.
Funk estimates 8,000 to 10,000 people will visit in its Iowa stops.
Those who visited the relic Wednesday in Cedar Rapids were able to pray in its presence and bring an object of their own to lay upon the vial, thereby creating a third-class relic. They waited in line, carrying multiple rosaries, Bibles, crosses and other objects to venerate the relic by praying over it and kissing it.
Brenda Hall traveled from Ankeny, saying the relic had personal and religious significance to her. John Paul was from Poland, the same as Hall's grandparents.
It was also special to see the relic on the 100th anniversary of the Our Lady of Fatima sightings, when children herding sheep in Fatima, Portugal, reported they were visited by an angel similar to the Virgin Mary three times.
Hall said she wanted to pray over the relic for her sister's family in Florida in the path of Hurricane Irma.
Sister Grace Marie, who is from Cedar Rapids, said she was happy to 'deepen the meaning of the words” the late pope spoke to Iowans in 1979 through the relic.
Saint John Paul still provides many lessons, she said.
'He is a man who was loved by many, not only for the great gifts that he had, but really for his simplicity,” the sister said.
'He was in many ways an ordinary man who lived in an extraordinary way. And that's how we are all called to live. It doesn't necessarily mean we need to be anything extraordinary, but it can mean living our ordinary lives with extraordinary love.”
Viewings of the relic are moving west to the Des Moines area. Here's when and where it will be available for veneration:
St. Anthony Catholic Church
Today; 15 Indianola Road, Des Moines
Mass: 8:30 a.m. (English)
Veneration: until 10 a.m.
Holy Hour: 6 p.m.
Mass: 7 p.m. (Spanish)
Veneration: until 9 p.m.
St. Joseph Chapel, Dowling Catholic High School
Friday; 1400 Buffalo Road, West Des Moines
Veneration and teachings: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Church of the Land, Living History Farms
Saturday; 11121 Hickman Road, Urbandale
Nonmembers: Use the code 'pope” for discounted entry
When: Noon to 3 p.m.
Our Lady of Americas
Saturday; 1271 E 9th St., Des Moines
Veneration: 5:45 p.m
Mass: 6:30 p.m.
St. Patrick Parish
Sunday; 3396 155th St., Cumming
Mass: 8 a.m.
Veneration: 9 to 11 a.m.