Construction of Raiatea Resource Centre, at Motuti Marae between Kohukohu and Mitimiti, is well under way with the roof of the two-storey building now nearing completion.

Most items in the collection — which include Maori and Polynesian artefacts and objects relating to the history of the Catholic church in New Zealand — were collected by the late Pa Henare Tate over a period of 30 years. Others were donated to Motuti Marae by international visitors.

The curator of Te Ahu Museum in Kaitaia, Whina Te Whiu, said Te Ahu currently had the biggest publicly-accessible collection of historic artefacts in the Far North. Continue reading

They are treasured relics, saved from a disastrous fire which took place more than 100 years ago. Continue reading

The collection includes:

• The cassock of Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores and the sword that martyred him
• A Spanish-era stone water well
• A subset of articles that were once under the care of Monsignor Oscar Calvo
• The large alloy bell that hung in the Cathedral's steeple on the day of Guam's 1941 invasion by Imperial Japanese forces.

"This unveiling signals an enticing new outreach program for the Archdiocese of Agana," Monsignor James Benavente said. "By reconnecting with our island's true past through recovery, restoration, preservation and exhibition, not only do we demonstrate the Church's indelible thread running through the fabric of our culture, heritage and history, but we also open a fresh forum to testify to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to call his sheep to the fold.
Source

• Pacific News Centre
• Image: Wikimedia.org

We need things: keepsakes, stuff, tokens, tchotchkes, knickknacks, bits and pieces, junk and treasure.

We carry special objects in our pockets and purses, or place them on shelves and desks in our homes and offices.

As profane and ordinary as the objects may be, they can also be extraordinary. Some things even become objects of transcendence.

Devout people of faith, across religious traditions, often denigrate material goods, suggesting the really real is beyond what can be seen, felt, and heard.

Yet a closer look at religious histories reveals a heart-felt, enduring love for things.

Objects large and small, valuable and worthless are there from the beginning of traditions, creating memories and meanings for the devotees who pray and worship, love and share, make pilgrimage and make music.

To look at religious histories through objects is to follow a new path of historical thinking, with recent studies examining tea, cod, tulips, guns, germs and steel, and how each of these has in its own way "changed the world."

Similar projects can be seen in the British Museum's "A History of the World in 100 Objects," the New York Times' "A History of New York in 50 Objects" or Smithsonian magazine's "101 Objects that Made America."

My interest here is not simply to trail a popular publishing lead, but to say that an understanding of religion is incomplete if it ignores the material things that make it part of what it is.

With that, here is "A History of Religion in 11 Objects"... Continue reading.

Source: HuffingtonPost

Image: The stone of anointing - known as the place where Joseph of Arimathea had Jesus' body prepared for burial Flickr: Guillaume Paumier

"We want Santa Sofia to remain a museum. It was a Christian church for over 1000 years," Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople has said. "If it is to be reconsecrated, then it should go back to being a Christian church, since it was not built to be a mosque."

The basilica, completed in 537, became a mosque in 1453 with the Ottoman conquest and was made a museum in 1935.

Continue reading