What is a Saint Relic—and Why Do Catholics Seek Out Relics on Pilgrimage?

When you decide to embark on a Catholic pilgrimage, you might notice that your itinerary includes opportunities to venerate the relics of a saint—whether that’s their clothing, a piece of bone, a literal body (incorrupt), or some personal item from their life.

Perhaps the idea of praying in the same room as the piece of a body of a saint strikes you as odd and maybe sounds a little paganistic.

Fear not.

Consider when Jesus heals the hemorrhaging woman. She touches the hem of his garment (Mark 5:25-34) and she is healed. Jesus’ garment does not have power itself; He is the one that heals her. We are sensing creatures that greatly benefit from tangible reminders and Christ knows this about us!

Consider the sick who simply wait for the shadow of St. Peter to pass over them and they are healed (Acts 5:14-16) or the fact that “when face cloths or aprons that touched [Peter’s] skin were applied to the sick, their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them” (Acts 19:12). It is not because St. Peter’s body or shadow is powerful in and of itself, but Christ through St. Peter. Christ is affirming the role of St. Peter and His ministry continued through him.

The act of touching objects to the bodies of saints while they were alive (and after they died) continued as a popular practice.

We venerate relics, meaning we honor them as holy objects (“holy,” meaning, that which is set apart for the glory of God). We do not worship or give adoration to the saints or their relics. Worship and adoration are due to God alone. Veneration is simply honoring the person for glory of God revealed in their life.

Still weirded out by relics? Consider this: we know a tree by its fruit.

There are countless testimonies to miraculous healings brought about through the veneration of relics. Not because the relic itself holds power, but because the Lord delights to bless us through tangible reminders of His presence. Christ alone is the one that heals.

When a miracle occurs through the veneration of a saint relic, it highlights the work of God in that saint’s life; a grace so abundant that it overflows even after that saint’s death.

We know that the saints are more alive now than when they were on earth because now they worship Christ for all eternity, they are forever joined to Life Himself.

When we go on pilgrimage, the goal is surrender, to invite Christ to transform us from the inside out. By visiting the sites of the saints and venerating the relics of their earthly life, we are reminded that we are called to holiness too through the ordinary circumstances of our season and vocation.

When we see the childhood dress of St. Thérèse in Lisieux, we are pierced to the hear—recalling her frailty and humanity, yet by the Lord’s grace she was raised up to be a great saint. To look at the socks knitted by St. Clare of Assisi for St. Francis’ stigmata (the wounds of Christ he supernaturally bore on his body) reminds us that no suffering is too great that cannot be transformed into a moment of grace. If you walk into the chapel of St. Vincent de Paul, his literal heart is there which convicts us of Christ’s call, “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be” (Matt 6:21).  Are we willing to surrender our whole selves for the Gospel?

May every aspect of our lives magnify the glory of God—from our shoe laces and worn hands to our greatest accomplishments and deepest sufferings. To venerate the relics of the saints is to be convicted of the universal call to holiness in the ordinary.