Is this a sin?

[Lady_Cygnus]

Is it a sin to swap the corpus (corpii?) of two blessed crucifixes? We had a medium wood crucifix with a bronze corpus and a dark wood crucifix with a silver corpus, and we swapped them. The reason was that I had made a huge rosary out of medium wood, with silver fixings, and the mix of the two matched perfectly.

Does it matter if this rosary is for a priest - does that absolve me? Just so you know, I don’t think this was a sin (since I wasn’t desecrating, just moving), but my niece is curious if it actually was. And it’s still unnerving to take the body of christ off the cross.

 

[Ruthie]

I don’t believe it is a sin. It would be sinful is you then sold one of the Crucifrixes, using the blessing to increase the asking price. That would be simony.

In your place, I’d make sure by having them blessed again. I have taken apart a blessed rosary to re-use the beads with a different center and Crucifix, and that’s what I did.

 

[Lady_Cygnus]

I don’t believe it is a sin. It would be sinful is you then sold one of the Crucifrixes, using the blessing to increase the asking price. That would be simony.

In your place, I’d make sure by having them blessed again. I have taken apart a blessed rosary to re-use the beads with a different center and Crucifix, and that’s what I did.

I also make rosaries and have taken apart a blessed one and reused the parts. I know it’s the same thing, but something about prying Jesus off the cross with a screwdriver seemed worse then bending a couple pieces of wire

I plan on giving the rosary to a priest, so it’ll be blessed soon

 

[puzzleannie]

Is it a sin to swap the corpus (corpii?) of two blessed crucifixes?

I am totally unable to come up with any scenario that would make this sinful, and am curious as to why you would pose the question? you end up with two entire crucifixes, neither of which has been desecrated. what is the problem again?

 

[Lady_Cygnus]

I am totally unable to come up with any scenario that would make this sinful, and am curious as to why you would pose the question? you end up with two entire crucifixes, neither of which has been desecrated. what is the problem again?

I didn’t think it was a sin, but my niece wanted to “know for sure” since my authority wasn’t good enough for her . She’ll be glad to know that so far most haven’t even thought it close enough to a sin to post to the thread.

 

[jmcrae]

No - it’s an object that represents Jesus, which is why we take good care of it, but it isn’t actually Jesus - you can do whatever you want with it. How do you think crucifixes are made, in the first place? They don’t fall down from Heaven - someone has to use a screwdriver on them (and probably more than that) to begin with, anyway. You weren’t doing anything different from what goes on in the workshop when they make them.

 

[Cristiano]

Is it a sin to swap the corpus (corpii?) of two blessed crucifixes? We had a medium wood crucifix with a bronze corpus and a dark wood crucifix with a silver corpus, and we swapped them. The reason was that I had made a huge rosary out of medium wood, with silver fixings, and the mix of the two matched perfectly.

Does it matter if this rosary is for a priest - does that absolve me? Just so you know, I don’t think this was a sin (since I wasn’t desecrating, just moving), but my niece is curious if it actually was. And it’s still unnerving to take the body of christ off the cross.

This is a dangerous territory where our protestant brothers like to pick at us. This is when people start to use graven images and give them more credit then what they deserve. They are just images that remind us of the passion of the Lord, nothing more. I am not saying that your is not a natural first reaction because of your love for Christ but use reason and faith. A few days ago I felt bad when the image of the Christ fell off the crucifix that I wear daily, and I was really happy when I found it next to my closet. However, I was happy like when I found a lost note that my parents wrote to me years ago, nothing more.

 

[Verbum]

HI Christina,

The work you are doing is art. It obeys the rules of art. These items are wood, plaster, whatever. They have no personalilty. Changing the items around affects nothing. Let’ s not look for sin… please!

If you care to know, the plural of corpus is *corpora (*accent on the first o). It is not only the Latin plural, but also the only English plural, at least according to Webster’s Collegiate, 10th ed.

Verbum

 

[MH84]

Out of respect should we wash our hands before touching a religious item in our home eg Bible, statues, esprecially if we also bring them to church? What do you think?

 

[LilyM]

Out of respect should we wash our hands before touching a religious item in our home eg Bible, statues, esprecially if we also bring them to church? What do you think?

Remember the Gospel story where the Apostles didn’t do the ritual washing of their hands that the Pharisees did and were criticised by them for it?

This sounds like it’s getting awfully close to that sort of territory. If you think your hands are so grubby that they’ll dirty what you touch then clean them. Don’t worry about whether it’s a religious item or not for heaven’s sakes.

 

[hermitcrab]

Been there, done that.

What was far, far worse was hammering the nails in when refixing the corpus… We apologised profusely to Jesus…

I also make rosaries and have taken apart a blessed one and reused the parts. I know it’s the same thing, but something about prying Jesus off the cross with a screwdriver seemed worse then bending a couple pieces of wire

I plan on giving the rosary to a priest, so it’ll be blessed soon

 

[cialovesyou]

Lady…You know that term “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”?..It is total nonsense, and not consistant with catholic theology. Your intention is always relevent to when you commit a sin. Since you didnt intend to “transgress the will of God”, you did nothing wrong.
On top of that, the act you did was not objectively wrong, but either morally neutral, or probably morally good (restoration of a religious artifact).
NB: No-one has ever committed a mortal sin accidently…they may well have done something gravely wrong/disordered/evil, but they dont have a mortal sin on their soul.