Something to hang your faith on.

Religious medals are one of the affectionate trademarks of Catholicism, familiar even to non-Catholics. (As a hard-bitten Irish cop in "The Untouchables," Sean Connery sported a Saint Jude medal. Alas, the prohibition baddies "iced" him anyway.) Yet traditional as medals may be, it's surprising how far back they date in Catholicism.

In the fourth century Saint Zeno cited medals as gifts to the newly baptized and as a Christianization of a pagan custom. Medieval "pilgrim signs" cast in lead provided souvenirs for globe-trotting shrine-goers. The 15th century ushered in the new custom of commemorating religious events with medals, such as papal jubilees. (I have a medal depicting Pope Pius XII opening the holy year door with a hammer.) The 16th-century pope Pius V is credited with initiating the custom of blessing and indulgencing medals.

Bearing no power in themselves, medals are merely symbols of our faith, reminding the wearer to revere God through the person or event pictured. As a parent packs a walletful of family snapshots, so the medals I've collected make me smile and evoke affection for their subjects. (I have so many, I clank like the ghost of Jacob Marley in a high wind.)

But just as medals remind me of my favorite saints, I secretly hope those saints will remember me. One pet medal is a souvenir of the Catacomb of St. Sebastian in Rome. On it are stamped SS. Peter & Paul," implacably eyeball-to-eyeball for all eternity. A scrawled catacomb graffito reproduced with their images cries: Petre et Paule, in mentenes habete (Peter and Paul, remember me!).

Medals can also remind others of God's presence in the most unwelcoming environment. A Catholic friend of mine who nurses the dying deliberately wears a different medal each day. It's her "silent witness" within the secular facility that employs her.

But most of all, I relish Catholic medals as a metaphor for our spiritual lives. As a collector of old, pre-Vatican II medals, I'm thrilled when I find a cache of rejects so tarnished they look grunge brown; a liberal application of metal polish and elbow grease yields rich rewards. As the tarnish slowly dissolves, the true metal shines through; while some medals are only silver-washed copper, others are true sterling.

God also polishied us free of sin For some, faith is a mere veneer of silver whose base metal is revealed by hard wear. But for others, the harder the abrasion, the purer the silver of faith that shines forth, stamped with the hallmark of its creator.

My most prized medal is a sacred heart so completely wom by use that Christ's face is smooth and blank, leaving only the outline of his head, his hands, and his heart. Each time I hold it, I envision the wrinkled, arthritic hands that so lovingly wore away the sacred face over decades of prayer.

This is perhaps the highest Cathohc ideal. Stamped crisp and clean-edged at our Baptism, life and sin may wear down the most shining faith. Yet those who are most wom, their features rubbed into anonymity, are held tight in God's hand. Lovingly he speaks their name and suspends them around his neck -- there to rest over his heart for afl etemity.