Relics

Venerate first-class relics of St. Faustina (the messenger of Divine Mercy), a first-class relic of Blessed Fr. Michael Sopocko (her spiritual director) and a first-class relic of St. Maximilian Kolbe in the Divine Mercy Chapel.

First-class relics of St. Patrick, St. Padre Pio and St. Teresa of Calcutta are located in the main church.

Click the links below to learn more about the Saints we have first-class relics of.St. Faustina Kowalaska
Bl. Michael Sopocko
St. Maximilian Kolbe 
St. Patrick
St. Padre Pio
St. Teresa of Calcutta 
 

Originially Published on 6/2/2024 in the St. Patrick Bulletin

Friends, peace be with you. 

Recently, Jacob Francois, one of our seminarians, returned from a trip to Poland with a relic of St. John Paul II for our parish. This was the completion of a project we had been working on for about a month to be able to honor the memory of this great saint by physically having a relic of him onsite. Being a “John Paul II” priest, it means a lot to me to have this powerful mark of intercession on our parish grounds and I appreciate Jacob’s willingness to procure and retrieve this unique marker of holiness for us. 

Part of the process for getting a relic involves asking the Archbishop to give his approval and write a note requesting the particular relic from the person or people responsible for the sacred distribution of the saint’s relics. When I did that, he had a couple of provisos that he wanted me to include, mostly educational in nature, about relics. Firstly, this shouldn’t be a sign that I am desiring for us to be seen as a pilgrimage destination or a shrine. St. Patrick’s church is a parish, meaning that we rely on parishioners for their contributions to pay our bills and maintain our parish plant. Another way of looking at this, is that our buildings are primarily used by our parishioners for their spiritual, human, pastoral, and educational upbuilding. It’s true to say that, especially in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, we welcome many people from other parishes who want to adore the Lord (and even the Archbishop himself when he comes through town and needs some place to pray) but primarily this space is meant for our parishioners to use. It is not my intent to keep getting relics so that we can get a stream of people on our campus in the hopes that they will contribute money. Granted, we will have a Mass and a placement of the relic, which will likely involve more people than just our parishioners, but that is the exception to the rule not the end goal. As I said to the Archbishop, the members of this parish have a tradition of displaying and utilizing relics as a visible sign and intercessory tool of a person who lived a radical life of holiness. 

The other concern the Archbishop evinced was that we display many of our relics in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel and the possibility of people getting the two confused. The Eucharist is the real presence of Jesus Christ himself. It is the reason that relics matter. We need not honor the body of a saint if we do not honor the Body of Christ. The Eucharist is our participation in the death and resurrection of the Lord, it is our salvation. As it says in 1 John 1:7 “...and the blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from all sin.” The blood of the saints cannot accomplish that. However, what a relic can “do” is connect us physically to that saint. We have a part of her or him with us and she or he is in heaven so she or he can be a powerful intercessor for us. Another way of looking at it is through the lens of memory. Whereas, a relic may call to mind St. John Paul II’s visit to Living History Farms or a visit to the Vatican or Poland you had or where you were when you found out he had been shot, the memory we receive from the Eucharist transports us back to the time of the Last Supper when Christ himself changed bread and wine into his Precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. One is a purely intellectual calling to mind while the other makes the past present for us now. 

Lastly, while some of you find relics to be very helpful to your spirituality, others of you don’t, which is fine. We all have different spiritualities and some of us find relics to be helpful and some don’t. However, that is not true of the Eucharist. It is the source and summit of our prayer life, where it comes from and where it leads to. Even as we place this relic to St. John Paul the Great, some of his blood, we know he would be the first to point us back to the blood of Christ and want to be a conduit of Christ’s grace for us.

 -Fr. Dennis Miller