An Encounter with Something

In the course me complaining to him, my spiritual director commented casually that he had managed to find a relic that had touched the tongue of St Anthony, so he was thoroughly all right at the moment despite the madness of the times. Which St Anthony? I asked. 'Padua', replied S.D., going on 'his tongue is in a reliquary there, as is his voicebox because he was such a lovely preacher. Sadly viewing these sacred items finally finished Christianity for a friend of mine, and he never went to church again.'

The cathedral authorities at Padua do seem to have done their best to display the remains of St Anthony in as nightmarishly surreal a manner as possible: