A moment that moved me in a particular way was the presentation of the relic of John Paul's blood to Pope Benedict. The one's who brought the silver reliquary holding the vial of blood were Sister Tobiana, who tended to John Paul through his papacy, and Sister Marie Simone-Pierre, whose unexplained cure from Parkinson's has been attributed to John Paul's intercession.
But what moved me was the fact that Benedict was the one receiving it. As I saw him take up the reliquary and reverence the blood of his predecessor, immediately the now famous image of then Cardinal Ratzinger being embraced by John Paul came to mind.
I thought of the early Church, and how the tombs and bodies of the martyrs were often visited and venerated by Christians who knew them in life. When we today venerate the relics of those ancient saints, it is a different experience, because we are separated by hundreds of years. In those first years after they were martyred however, the people who venerated them had known them in life, and sometimes even been close friends. Similarly, here before me, a man who knew John Paul, and worked with him, and had a deep respect for him, venerates the blood of his friend. What humility and joy Benedict must have felt in that moment.
It's actually kind of unique that the relic be liquid blood. His body was not disturbed at all. It was blood that had been drawn shortly before his death, and was simply kept at the hospital. No one got rid of it. (The fact that it is still liquid is not miraculous by the way - anticoagulants were added to it when it was drawn back in 2005. This is not St. Januarius we're talking about.)
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