Pilgrimage Report: Treasures of the Church 2019

Earlier this year, I had a really cool opportunity to go on a short pilgrimage. It was so short that it only took a few hours, and I pretty much did it right after work. Crazy.

A week prior, I was at work just sitting at my desk when I received an interesting email from a coworker. Lots of people that I know from my parish were copied on it. The email contained information about a traveling relic tour of over 160 relics! 

I made a note to look into the details of the event.

Conveniently, the church where the event would be held is near where I live and work! 

The relic tour is hosted by a ministry called Treasures of the Church. It is run by two priests that bring a Vatican collection of relics around the world at the invitation of parishes. They have relics from over 160 saints, and all of them except 6 are first-class relics.

I wrote a blog post on relics, so be sure to check that out.

Some of the most amazing relics are from Jesus’ Passion including a thorn from His crown of thorns, and some of the largest available pieces of His cross that He was crucified on. Other really cool ones include a piece of the Virgin Mary’s veil, a piece of St. Joseph’s cloak, and bone fragments of the OG apostles (minus Judas).

You can check out more info at their website right here.

Pilgrimage Details:

Location: St. Peter the Apostle, White Settlement, TX

Time Required: 3 hours

Cost: $0 (except gas used)

Transportation: Car

Accommodation: None

Essentials: Prayer intentions notebook

Itinerary:

• 1800 Leave home
• 1830 Arrive at St. Peter’s
• 1900 Event starts with a talk
• 1945 Talk ends, relic veneration
• 2130 Finished up, didn’t stay to visit every relic

Map

Points of Interest

Talk

Fr. Carlos was the priest who gave the presentation. He gave an excellent talk on the Church’s view on relics. I took some notes down, and I’ll likely update my own relic post with some of the new information that I learned from him! Having the background on relics was important because it gave context and a really good explanation of why we even have them in the first place.

He also focused on how to respond to encountering these relics, and how to allow God’s grace to work through His saints, who are definitely with Him. He also shared a handful of stories of miracles related to the relics just by him giving these relic talks and expositions of the relics. Really crazy.

One main theme Fr. Carlos focused on was forgiveness. He went into the full detail of St. Maria Goretti’s story. You can read up on her here. I’ll share more about it below.

All in all, the talk was helpful in preparing all of us in attendance to encounter these relics.

Veneration of the relics

Since I happened to sit on the side of the church closest to the table of relics with the apostles’ bone fragments, Our Lady’s veil, and St. Joseph’s cloak, I got in line for that one. Wow, I just remember being in awe because that’s a pretty insane set of relics to encounter.

After venerating those relics, I went over to the gym of the adjacent Catholic school where they had set up rows and rows of tables for the remainder of the relics.

Each table had 6 or so relics of many different famous saints. Most relics were bone fragments. It was difficult maneuvering around in the gym because most everyone were in a constantly moving line from table to table in order to venerate the relics. I remember just being constantly wow’d because I’d see one of my favorite saints represented.

After the gym, I thought about getting in line to venerate relics from Jesus’ Passion, but it was already too late at that point, and I had to work the next day so I decided to leave.

Stats and Achievements

• Shortest pilgrimage reported so far (as of 7/5/2019): 3 hours
• Venerated relics: ~55

Response

Despite this being a short pilgrimage, I still had a few takeaways:

We’re not alone

Encountering these relics helped me remember that there are most excellent examples of people who have come before that lived the way, the truth, and the life even if imperfectly. They’re an inspiration and witness for me! Since these people are canonized saints, the Church can say that we’re 99.99999% sure these people are in heaven, and they’re even more alive with God praying for us. It was overwhelming to see that many relics in one place, not gonna lie, but these relics serve as a tangible reminder of the fact that we have Christian brothers and sisters who can be such great examples of living out the Gospel for us.

Forgiveness is key

The last major point that Fr. Carlos had for us was forgiveness. Refusing to forgive is the hardest roadblock we tend to have in order to have a fruitful encounter with God. And with these relics. 

I was immediately put to the test! Again, I left the church rather quickly knowing that I have work the next day. When I drove home, I stopped to get gas, and there I noticed that a corner of my front bumper had been scratched up rather badly. I think someone in the church parking lot took a shallow corner into their parking spot next to mine. Honestly, I was really frustrated because I had just replaced two tires and wasn’t looking to spend more money to repair my car.

But! Because of the talk and encountering the relics…I decided to forgive whoever it was, even if they won’t hear it from me personally. I know I can’t get too caught up in this incident because it ultimately doesn’t matter–what matters is my interior disposition towards the person and how I’m responding to this incident.

Besides…on the optimistic side…because I’m an engineer and striving to be frugal…maybe I can learn how to do the repair myself! (or find a good deal paying someone else to fix it, lol).

All the saints, holy men and women–pray for us!

Want to read more pilgrimage reports?

Here are a few of my recent ones!

• St. John Vianney Relic Tour in Atlanta, GA
• The Catholic Man Show Podcast Camp Out 2018 at Clear Creek Abbey
• Into the Desert! Phoenix, AZ 2018

Featured Photo by Michal Mrozek on Unsplash