Relics in Your Parish (POLL)

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If your parish is in the Byzantine Tradition, relics are sewn into the antimension on the altar. Our altar is like a table but the tabernacle is in the center and the priest offers the Liturgy facing East (ad orientem).
 
The relics are labelled, so I’d imagine most know what they are, especially since the layout of the chapel means that plenty of people have probably taken a little time to read the plaque above them.

I think the issue is that they are very small. They aren’t large relics, just tiny fragments in a small, wall-mounted display. People probably forget that they’re there.
 
We have 2 relics at our church which are rarely displayed nor venerated. Maybe once a year if that.
 
We have two of three full skeletal remains of Saints available for viewing in the world at our Parish. They were martyred in the Colosseum in the 3rd or 4th century.

http://www.stmartinoftourschurch.org/the-shrine-of-saints-magnus-and-bonosa/

Reinterment Mass in 2012


http://m.ncregister.com/daily-news/relics-of-the-past-and-the-present#.W1qMo3MpAew

“We can talk about the martyrs of the Colosseum, but the relics of St. Magnus and St. Bonosa put you literally face-to-face with Catholics who were there and paid the ultimate price for their faith,” he said. “It’s very powerful.”
Fr. Paul Beach
Pastor St Martin of Tours Louisville Kentucky

Aside:
At the 3:20 mark of the video you we’ll see an elderly white haired priest kneeling.

That is Fr. Charles Schoenbaechler RIP

He prayed the EF Mass at Saint Martin of Tours many years until his health kept him from doing so. He was in his 90s when he passed away.
 
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Our local Dominican parish has loads of relics that are brought out throughout the year during liturgies appropriate to their veneration. The life size cross used on Good Friday for the Adoration of the Cross has in its center (allegedly) a relic of the True Cross. The church also serves as a shrine to St. Jude Thaddeus, so every day after the 5:30 PM Mass the priests bless individuals with his relics.
 
Father has a relic of the True Cross. Additionally, Brother’s family has one of only two known remaining relics of the True Cross with an imperial seal (as opposed to the vatican’s . . .). Both come out several times a year on appropriate Sunday’s.

hawk

p.s. The bit about excessive relics of the Cross is nonsense. They have been tracked for many centuries; something like a third (or two thirds) of the beam is missing.

hawk
 
A relic - whatever the official description of one is -
is a huge thing !
Pastor - a few years ago - had a tiny bone fragment - of Saint Francis of Assisi -
It was in a glass enclosed, regal looking, frame - set up.
Pastor also has a Saint Theresa relic -
and he healed someone in a hospital with it.
Another huge deal - the healed person smelt roses in the air too -
but…Pastor only brings them out, it seems, at special times.
 
There aren’t any relics in my parish but there’s a first-class relic in a parish about ten miles from where I live.
 
My church doesn’t have any visible relics, but we’re a very small, poor, rural parish.

When I was a student, our church had shrine status and venerated a relic of the True Cross, which was a piece taken from the relic at the Basilica Church of Santa Croce in Jerusalem.

It’s visible and on display year-round, but gets brought out of its secure location periodically, for things like Good Friday, when we venerate it, rather than a crucifix.
 
We have first class relics of St. Faustina, St. Sebastian (early martyr), and St. Gianna Molla. They are each located in different side niches and people are free to venerate them before or after Mass. At my previous parish I never saw a single relic, so I am especially appreciative of these opportunities.
 
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We have a few Polish nuns who help in our parish school, and we have a lock of JP2’s hair because of their connections. Then we also have St. Catharine of Siena (our patroness) and St. Maria Goretti
 
I just left our Dominican parish where they were oddly enough anticipating the Feast of St. Dominic. The pastor just acquired a relic of St. Dominic’s ulna after a pilgrimage to his resting place in Bologna. Everyone was individually blessed. Now the parish is home to both a relic of an Apostle and of the order’s founder. 🙂
 
I have several first class relics in my home. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Bernadette Soubirous, St. Maria Goretti, True Cross.
 
You have the physical remains of four saints in your home? I thought private individuals weren’t really supposed to have those, and they were reserved for churches and shrines and orders to have.
 
We have a marble tomb of a venerable person at the back of the parish and we pray for canonization after daily Mass.
 
canonlawmadeeasy.com

Canon Law and the Private Ownership of Relics (Part II)

Q1: I have a question after your article “Canon Law and the Private Ownership of Relics, Part I” was shared with me. A few weeks ago, I was in Rome on pilgrimage. I received from a Passionist pries…
canonlawmadeeasy.com

Essentially, lay persons can have those tiny fleck-of-a-saint relics
 
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Yes, and it’s perfectly licit. The Seton relic came from the Seton Shrine in Emmitsburg, Md. The rest came from a Catholic Apostolate. These were all obtained 25 plus years ago. Today, the Seton Shrine no longer offers them to the laity.

Thomas J. Serafin is an American lay Roman Catholic author and Christian relics advocate, collector and expert. His links are below. His relic exhibits have appeared across the country. We attended one at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in D.C. I emailed him in 2014 the same question you asked me. I still have that e-mail. Here is his reply;
It is absolutely NOT sinful or forbidden to possess a relic. If it wasn’t for the devoted and faithful laity the clergy would have sold or thrown out all of the relics that have been rescued by lay people.
Click to expand...
http://www.apostolateforholyrelics.com/
http://www.ichrusa.com/
http://www.ichrusa.com/saintsalive/index.htm
 
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