I know many of you can’t conceive of anything as bizarre as viewing a relic and expecting to take away something emotionally or spiritually important from it.

Well, that’s what happened here here in New Orleans over Halloween weekend. Mary Magdalene’s leg bone was on display at a Catholic church on Canal Street. How do they know it was her leg bone? I don’t know, but perhaps it was authenticated in some way.

I don’t see this as any different than viewing a bone in a museum. I will be the first to admit I always go to museums whenever I travel. I even paid extra to see the Dead Sea Scrolls in Chicago a few years ago, so I’m not without my appreciation of historical and religious artifacts.

And sometimes these items can “move” me, too. But I’m betting that it is quite different from someone who actually goes to pray over a bone they think has magical powers, because it may have been in the body of someone who might have known Jesus.

I just wish people could be so inspired when they look at the bones of a carnivorous creature that lived 65 million years ago. Now that is awe inspiring! But those same Magdalene people are probably just as baffled with me.