Interesting article

On the "odor of sanctity" phenomenon. If you don't want to read the entire thing, pleaaaaaaaaase just read the last paragraph. (It's beautiful.)

I know I've posted a couple of pictures of saints with incorrupt bodies (see St. Catherine below). Another aspect of this miraculous lack of decay is that it is sometimes accompanied by a beautiful fragrance - the odor of sanctity. It happens to the bodies of holy people belonging to both the Catholic Church and her closest sister Church, Eastern Orthodoxy (the Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox etc have priests, all the sacraments, vestments, Mass, incense, and devotion to the Virgin Mary and all that glorious stuff).

Excerpt:

So this is why I'm interested to hear about the fragrance people experienced when they opened the coffin of Thérèse. I'm also interested because it coincides with other stories. There are lots of accounts through the ages, in both Catholic and Orthodox circles, of the odor of sanctity, corpses that exude perfume instead of putrefaction. There's an Orthodox monk in a Syrian monastery, for instance, whose body has been oozing a fragrant healing oil now for a couple of decades. I'm interested not because I am particularly credulous or because I think such miracles prove a lot. In fact, I'm interested for almost the opposite reason. While I do believe in miracles, I'm interested in the apparent randomness of it all. If this is a sign of holiness, why don't all saints smell good when their coffins are opened? Why should Bernadette's body be uncorrupt but not Thérèse's? It is all rather wonderful, but like most wonderful things, there's not much rhyme or reason to it.

...

When the coffin of a young girl is opened up and we smell roses, maybe the Divine Poet is reminding us that in this life we are in death, but in this death we are also in life. When a saint lies in a glass coffin like Sleeping Beauty, the Divine Storyteller may be reminding us that we have a final hope in the destiny of Love. Bernadette in her coffin reflects the truth that for those who are saved, dying is like falling asleep while we await the kiss of the Beloved. Uncorrupted bodies and the odor of sanctity may not be there to prove anything. Instead, like the gift of roses to a lover, such things may simply be tokens of love. They may be tender reminders that these funny, smelly bodies are intended for glory. The roses just might hold a deeper significance. We may discover, like Dante, that Paradise itself is a rose of eternal mystery, interlayered with an endless pattern of meaning, redolent with fragrance, and radiant with overwhelming beauty.

I like that last bit that mentions Dante. Leslie, did you ever have to read any Dante for Italian class? I read the Inferno a couple years ago (in English, heh heh) and I thought it was pretty good.