St. Aloysius Parish

Come to the 5:30 pm Mass and afterwards have the opportunity to venerate our first class relic of St. Carlo Acutis, our new millennial saint! The relic will be on display until 7:00pm.

Catholics venerate the relics of saints as a way to honor the saint’s inspiring way of life and bold faith. As Catholics, we strive to become saints ourselves and are encouraged to imitate the lives of the saints in our own daily lives.

St. Jerome, a great biblical scholar, said: “We do not worship relics, we do not adore them, for fear that we should bow down to the creature rather than to the creator. But we venerate the relics of the martyrs in order the better to adore him whose martyrs they are” (“Ad Riparium,” i, P.L., XXII, 907).

The veneration of relics is a Catholic practice of honoring the extraordinary work God did in a person’s life — a person who has achieved the highest level of holiness in the Catholic Church.

A relic is a physical object that had a direct association with a saint or with Jesus Christ. The word relic derives from the Latin word “relinquere,” which means “to abandon or leave behind.”

What are the different classes of relics?

Traditionally, relics can be broken down into three classes: first, second, and third. 

First-class relics are the body or fragments of the body of a saint, such as pieces of bone or flesh. An example of a first-class relic would be the skull of St. Thomas Aquinas or the bone of St. Jude Thaddeus. Pieces of the cross on which Jesus was crucified are also considered first-class relics.  Our St. Carlo relic is a piece of his hair.

A second-class relic is an item that a saint touched or owned, such as a shirt or book, or fragments of these items.

Third-class relics are items that a saint has touched or items that have been touched to a first-, second-, or another third-class relic. For example, touching the first-class relic of St. Carlo with your own personal rosary would make your rosary a third-class relic.

Claim the amount of time you are in church as a spiritual work of mercy, parish service or other!