Witness History: St Teresa of Avila’s severed hand, BBC Sounds
In the tiny church of Our Lady of Mercy in Ronda, Spain, is the severed hand of St Teresa of Avila. You can visit and pray.
The story is that the Spanish mystic’s left hand was cut off after her death – she was known for her divine visions and insistence that God was very near.
The relic has an intriguing history.
The hand was taken to Portugal to a community of nuns there, then later returned to Spain.
It was a hand within a silver glove with little windows displaying the 450-year-old flesh of the saint.
This episode of Witness History brought back memories of stopping off in Drogheda on our way to Dublin to visit the mummified head of Blessed Oliver Plunkett, which sat encased in a golden glass cage in the cathedral.
I’m not over it yet. Blessed Oliver followed me into my dreams. We didn’t need horror films to get the heebie-jeebies.
Still, we did pray for the 17th century martyr to be canonised and he did become Saint Oliver in 1975. That was the same year that Franco died. Stay with me.
Witness History brings strange and fascinating stories to life.
St Teresa’s hand was looted in the Spanish civil war. A nun was theatened with being thrown into the huge gorge at Ronda if she did not give it up. It would be like giving up her mother’s hand, she said... but she had to relent.
Later it was discovered among looted art works and was “acquired” by one General Franco. (I like the choice of verb).
He didn’t want to give it up either – legend says that he slept with the hand beside his bed every night.
Yes, the nuns tried but Franco was having none of it. The sacred hand was only returned in 1975 on his death.
Franco didn’t want to give it up either – legend says that he slept with the hand beside his bed every night
This episode was brought to life by Sister Jennifer, the mother superior in the Church at Ronda. She is passionate about the saint.
The series is full of snapshots of intriguing stories.
Go to the website and you can pick up the story of Hiroo Onoda – the Japanese Army intelligence officer who spent nearly 30 years in the jungle believing that World War Two was still going on.
He took convincing.