Chapter 17

Saintly Shrines, Relics, and Pilgrimages

In This Chapter

Becoming familiar with popular shrines

Understanding the different classes of relics

Considering going on a pilgrimage

Veneration of the saints isn’t idolatry, or false worship. According to the Christian faith, the Ten Commandments clearly condemn the worship of anyone or anything other than the Lord God.

Those same Ten Commandments also mandate that we honor our father and mother, but honoring someone isn’t the same as worshipping him. Honoring the saints isn’t any different. Erecting monuments and memorials to honor or remember people like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or Winston Churchill isn’t considered idolatry, and neither is erecting similar monuments to honor and remember St. Francis of Assisi or the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Christianity is centered on the doctrine that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is considered both human and divine, yet one person. This mystery of his dual nature (humanity and divinity) being united in his divine personhood is called the Incarnation. Because Jesus had a real human body, lived and walked on the earth, and visited actual places, the persons, places, and things associated with him have great importance and meaning to Christians.

In this chapter, we explore some of the shrines, relics, and pilgrimages that people of faith visit or undertake as part of their spiritual journey.

Shrines

Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Calvary — Jesus’s birthplace, hometown, and site of death, respectively — are considered holy places. They also are home to shrines, particular locations in those towns at which the faithful can pray and meditate on the life of Christ.

Places where the holy saints lived, worked, and died are also revered as holy. Usually, the town where the saint died and is buried has a shrine, and in most cases, the actual body of the holy man or woman is there as well. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first native-born American to be canonized, is buried at her national shrine in Emmitsburg, Maryland. St. John Neumann is buried at his shrine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Some shrines mark the location of an extraordinary event rather than the saint’s burial site. The shrine in Lourdes, France, for example, is where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette in 1858; a spring of miraculous healing water has been there ever since. Thousands of pilgrims visit the shrine in Lourdes every year, some actually bathing in the waters of the grotto. St. Bernadette herself, however, is buried at the convent where she died in Nevers, France.

In this section, we look at popular shrines and shrines of popular saints. Some are in the place where the saint lived or is buried, while others are in local areas to make the pilgrimage more accessible to more people.

St. Maria Goretti Shrine

Located in Nettuno, just 37 miles (60 kilometers) south of Rome, this shrine honors one of Italy’s most popular saints. Maria Goretti was an 11-year-old girl who forgave her attacker just before she died in 1902. Alessandro Serenelli (age 19) stabbed her 14 times when she resisted his attempts to seduce and then rape her. Pope Pius XII beatified her in 1947 and canonized her in 1950.

The shrine, built in 1969, contains her mortal remains where pilgrims make visits and offer prayers, especially for the safety of young girls and women and for the promotion of purity and chastity of all adolescents and young adults. The town of Nettuno is on the west coast of Italy between Rome and Naples, where many people vacation. The shrine also has a priceless, polychromed, wooden statue of Our Lady of Grace, which the town honors with a procession every year on the first Saturday of May.

St. Anne-de-Beaupré Shrine

Located in Quebec, Canada, this shrine is dedicated to the mother of the Virgin Mary and therefore the maternal grandmother of Jesus Christ. French settlers built it in 1658. A second (1661) and a third (1676) church were built as the previous ones became too small and insufficient. The first basilica was begun in 1876 and was large enough to accommodate all the pilgrims from Canada and the U.S., but a fire completely destroyed it in 1922. One year later, the present basilica was built at the current location.

Neo-Romanesque in architecture, the shrine to St. Anne receives hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year. French- and English-speaking Canadians, U.S. citizens, and Europeans alike visit this holy memorial to the mother of the Mother of God. Often called the Lourdes of North America, St. Anne’s shrine gets thousands of visitors who are sick and infirm.

St. Jean-Marie Vianney Shrine

Located in Ars, France, the shrine to St. John Vianney (called Sanctuaire d’Ars in French) is dedicated to the patron saint of all priests throughout the world. The shrine is part of the diocese of Belley-Ars, of the ecclesiastical province of Lyon, France. It’s a diocesan church, unlike many shrines, which are owned and operated by a religious community of men or women.

The church of St. Sixtus, a 12th-century monument, rebuilt by the efforts of St. John (Jean) Vianney, is now a gateway into the 19th-century St. Sixtus Basilica, which the priest had commissioned by the architect Pierre-Marie Bossan. The transept of the basilica contains a reliquary containing the incorrupt body of the holy pastor of Ars. An underground church was built in 1961 to handle the overflow number of pilgrims.

St. (Padre) Pio of Pietrelcina Shrine

Although Padre Pio was born in the town of Pietrelcina, he died and is buried in San Giovanni Rotondo (province of Foggia) in southern Italy, where his remains are entombed at the shrine in his honor. A church (San Maria delle Grazie) was built in 1950 because the original friary where St. Pio celebrated daily Mass was becoming too crowded. That became the shrine when he died in 1968. A new shrine was built in 2004 that can accommodate 6,500 people. It’s run by the Capuchin Franciscans, the religious order to which Padre Pio belonged.

Pilgrims can visit the shrine museum in San Giovanni Rotondo, which contains the vestments the saint wore when he celebrated Mass, his religious habit, personal artifacts, and the famous gloves he wore in humility to hide the stigmata. The stigmata are a supernatural appearance of one or more of the five wounds of Christ on a person. Padre Pio would get the wounds in his hands and bleed every time he celebrated Holy Mass. He eventually wore the gloves to prevent people from being distracted from the divine worship.

Near the shrine of Padre Pio is the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza (House to Relieve Suffering), which is the hospital the saint founded through donations of patrons. No fee or charge is assessed to any patient who comes to this medical treatment center. Built in 1956, it has state-of-the-art technology and is one of the most hygienic hospitals in Europe.

St. (Mother) Francis Xavier Cabrini

Located in northern Manhattan in New York City, less than a mile from the George Washington Bridge, the Mother Cabrini Shrine overlooks the Hudson River and the state of New Jersey. The 19th-century Italian immigrant from Lombardy came to America to help those who were being neglected in the New World because of prejudice toward Catholics and Italians alike. She founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and built schools and orphanages in Chicago, Illinois; Golden, Colorado; New Orleans, Louisiana; Scranton, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington, in addition to the one in New York.

When Mother Cabrini was beatified in 1938, her remains were placed in a glass-enclosed coffin to rest beneath the altar at the shrine. Pope Pius XII canonized her in 1946, and in 1957, a new shrine of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was begun and completed in 1960. Mother Cabrini’s earthly remains are now kept in an urn and were transferred to the new shrine. A wax effigy of her is displayed in the altar for veneration. Surrounding the altar are mosaics depicting her life, and a two-story stained glass window of her is at the west entrance. The shrine is part of the nearby parish of St. Elizabeth Church, at 187th Street and Wadsworth Avenue.

Many pilgrims of Italian descent visit her shrine in appreciation for the love and work she gave to the Church and her fellow paesans (“countrymen” in Italian).

St. Faustina Shrine

Located in Kraków, Poland, the shrine to St. Faustina Kowalska was built on the same grounds of the convent of the Congregation of Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. That’s the religious community Sister Faustina entered as a nun. She had a vision of Jesus in 1931 where he appeared with white and red rays emanating from his Sacred Heart. The white represented the grace of Baptism (because water is used) and the red represented the grace of the Holy Eucharist (because of the precious blood). Both come from the same source, both wash away sin, and both are sources of divine mercy.

Pilgrims from around the world come to visit this shrine. It was painted by the artist Adolf Hyła, who presented it to the convent chapel in Kraków-Łagiewniki as a votive offering for the miraculous saving of his family from the war. Every year on the Feast of Divine Mercy (first Sunday after Easter), large numbers of pilgrims come to the shrine to honor the request made by Jesus to St. Faustina to pray for mercy, especially for the conversion of sinners.

Relics

Things or artifacts that once belonged to the saints are also considered holy and are called relics. Relics are separated into three categories — first-class, second-class, and third-class.

Almost every Catholic church has some relics of the saints. These things have special meaning for those who honor and venerate the memory of their original owner.

Just as there is nothing magical about the holy places where shrines are erected, neither is there anything magical about relics. They don’t bring you good luck or protect you from harm, but they are mementos of these spiritual heroes. St. Jerome stated, “We do not worship, we do not adore, 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.”

Canon law forbids the sale of relics in any shape or form. During the Middle Ages, a few unscrupulous and wicked men sought to take advantage of the growing popularity of relics, so they took animal bones and promoted them as first-class relics of popular saints. Not only were these relics fakes, but the men were also trafficking in what was claimed to be authentic relics, which would have been a sin in itself.

Today, strict rules of documentation must accompany any relic of any class. Without the paperwork, these items can’t be displayed for public veneration. Only one or two places in Rome now provide relics for Catholic churches around the world, to maintain the integrity and authenticity of the relic and prevent any fraud or abuse.

The following sections discuss each of these classes of relics.

First-class relics

First-class relics are any part of the saint’s body. While hair would be considered a relic, most often a first-class relic is a piece of bone that’s contained in a reliquary (a special container for displaying relics of the saints).

These small fragments are contained in either elaborate reliquaries or placed inside altar stones — a square piece of marble with a small hole containing the first-class relics of one or more saints, which is laid into the top of an altar.

When the Romans persecuted the Christians for the first 300 years after Christ’s birth, Mass was celebrated secretly in the catacombs and usually over the graves of the holy martyrs. After Christianity was legalized, the practice of celebrating Mass over the relics of martyrs was maintained by placing a relic inside the altar to be used for Mass.

While most first-class relics are bones, there are others. For example:

A relic of St. Anthony’s incorrupt (non-decayed) tongue is in a reliquary at his shrine in Padua, Portugal.

A vial of St. Januarius’s blood is at his shrine in Naples, Italy, and the faithful come every year on his feast day (September 19) to witness the annual de-coagulation of his blood.

The right forearm of St. Stephen of Hungary is in a reliquary at his shrine in Budapest.

Second-class relics

Second-class relics are things the saint personally owned, wore, or used. Clothing, writing instruments, and personal items such as a private Bible, Rosary, crucifix, ring, or religious garb, for example, are the usual things classified as second-class relics.

The gloves worn by St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina are considered second-class relics, as they touched his body but weren’t part of it. The eyeglasses worn by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton would be a second-class relic, but usually something of that size and caliber are kept in a religious museum. Pieces of the religious habit that a saint wore, or the person’s vestments (if the saint was a cleric), would be more available to the common folk.

The size is inconsequential, so even a small fragment or swatch of material is all that’s needed. Often, the relic itself is so small as to make it unrecognizable, but the paperwork of authenticity that accompanies every legitimate relic tells you what it is.

Third-class relics

Third-class relics are usually pieces of cloth that are touched to a first- or second-class relic. These are the most common because they don’t involve the distribution or disintegration of a first- or second-class relic.

Often, you can find third-class relics attached to a holy card made soon after the canonization of a saint. The piece of cloth is usually no larger than 1//8 inch. The relic is inserted into a holy card with a prayer inscribed that’s addressed to the saint for intercession before God.

Pilgrimages

Sometimes, there’s more to a holy visit than the destination; often, the journey itself is worthy of note and reflection. This journey, called a pilgrimage, is the trip one takes from a home location to a spiritual destination, and the travel is part of the symbolism. Just as the Hebrews journeyed for 40 years in the desert before reaching the Promised Land after their Exodus from Egyptian slavery, Christians have for centuries made pilgrimages to the places where Jesus lived, walked, performed miracles, died, and was resurrected.

Hebrews, in fact, made pilgrimages every year to the Temple in Jerusalem before it was destroyed in AD 70. The last remnant of that is the Wailing Wall, where Jewish pilgrims continue to visit two millennia later. Muslims are encouraged to make at least one pilgrimage (called the Hajj) to Mecca in their lifetime. Likewise, Catholic Christians are exhorted to visit those places considered holy by their religion.

Pilgrimages were never meant to be easy, cheap, or comfortable. People go on pilgrimages less frequently than pleasure trips but do so with great devotion and prayer. Often, people go on pilgrimages in groups rather than individually. Traveling with others isn’t always fun; some people don’t like to fly, or they get seasick or carsick, for instance. Putting up with your fellow pilgrims is part of the process. The spiritual nature of the journey and the destination, however, gives pilgrims the motivation to endure more and put up with more inconvenience and even occasional hardship.

Every inconvenience and unexpected problem is seen as a spiritual challenge when on pilgrimage. These snags are meant to toughen up the traveler and be used as penance for past sins or mortification to be stronger in resisting future temptations. That’s why first-class accommodations aren’t promoted: The purpose of the pilgrimage is to symbolize the real-life pilgrimage when a believer travels from this world into the next.

The following sections discuss some of the earliest pilgrimages, as well as more modern-day ones.

The early pilgrimages

The first Christian pilgrimages didn’t take place until the fourth century because of 300 years of Roman persecution. After the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in AD 313 officially legalizing Christianity, the faithful could openly practice their religion. His mother, Empress St. Helena, made the first public pilgrimage to the Holy Land and went to Jerusalem to find the place where Jesus died on the cross. A church was built on the site, beginning the practice of an active church being located where a holy person lived, worked, and/or died.

Though the Romans built many roads and aqueducts throughout the empire, the popularity of pilgrimages during the Middle Ages prompted the building of more roads to help the travelers get to their destination. Hospitals, hostels, and inns were needed along the difficult routes to take care of the basic material needs (food, medicine, shelter) of the many pilgrims journeying throughout Europe. As the Crusades tried to free up the pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land, more local places were sought by those not “with sword,” as they were called. Hence, the faithful journeyed to shrines in France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and other lands. Though not places where Jesus actually walked, these shrines marked places where the saints had lived and/or died and were often buried: Santiago de Compostela, Czestochowa, Walsingham, Fulda, Aachen, Mariazell, Monte Sant’Angelo, Rome, and so on.

American pilgrimages

Thousands of Americans make pilgrimages to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, this shrine has within it many mini-shrines to the saints and to Mary and her apparitions, such as in Lourdes, Fatima, Knock, and Guadalupe.

Many Catholic dioceses across the U.S. have pilgrimages to the National Shrine to mark anniversaries, like the founding of the diocese, or to celebrate a holy year in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as the diocese of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, did in October 2009. Parish pilgrimages also take place, where the pastor, parochial vicar, and deacon lead a group from their congregation to the shrine. Mass is celebrated in one of the many smaller chapels, and visits to the gift shop and bookstore are always popular afterwards.

When you can’t afford to travel overseas, try making a local pilgrimage. Besides the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, this side of the Atlantic has many other national shrines, including

Any of the 21 missions in California

Basilica of the National Shrine of St. Ann in Scranton, Pennsylvania

Blue Army Shrine in Washington, New Jersey

Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden, Colorado

National Shrine of North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York

National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, Pennsylvania

National Shrine of St. Gerard in Newark, New Jersey

Shrine of Divine Mercy in Stockton, Massachusetts

Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, Illinois

Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg, Maryland

Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, Alabama

Shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin

A pilgrimage for priests

Pope Benedict declared June 19, 2009, to June 19, 2010, as the “Year for Priests.” Consequently, many priests, deacons, and lay faithful have made or are making pilgrimages to the shrine of St. John Vianney, the patron saint of all priests. He worked and died in Ars, France, where there’s a shrine to this holy man of God (see the “St. Jean-Marie Vianney Shrine” section earlier in the chapter). Making a pilgrimage to his shrine is similar to the journey that thousands made in 2008 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Virgin Mary appearing to St. Bernadette in Lourdes, France.