If you’re traveling through the USA or looking for a place to pilgrimage to in the US that has a lot of your favorite saint relics, this is the place for you! But, first, let’s sign into what exactly classifies as a relic.
There are 3 types of relics:
- First-class Relics: a part of a saint’s body (like fingernails or fragments of a bone)
- Second-class Relics: an item used by a saint (like a shoe)
- Third-class Relics: an object touched to a first-class relic (my daughter’s rosary that was touched to a vial of Saint Pope John Paul II’s blood)
The Maria Stein Shrine of the Holy Relics
The Maria Stein Shrine of the Holy Relics contains 1,100 relics in 970 reliquaries representing 900 saints. 95% of the relics are first-class. The collection continues to grow since they receive new relics from the Vatican regularly. It is located in the Diocese of Cincinnati.
Some relics that can be found here include:
- Relic of the True Cross
- St. Peregrine
- St. Stephen
- Padre Pio
- St. Teresa of Avila
- St. Ursula and Companions
- St. Victoria
- St. Anthony of Padua
- St. Anne, mother of May
St. John Cantius Church
Located in the Archdiocese of Chicago, St. John Cantius is home to about 1800 relics.
One very interesting facet of the collection of relics at St. John Cantius Church is the relics of the saints from the Lenten Station Churches of Rome. In the fourth century, pilgrims could journey to Rome and visit churches honoring various saints.
St. John Cantius is known for its celebration of the traditional liturgy and the Station Churches which are listed each day of Lent in the traditional missal.
St. Anthony’s Chapel
St. Anthony’s Chapel can be found in the Diocese of Pittsburgh and it boasts of having over 5,000 relics.
Included in this chapel are these relics:
- A splinter of the True Cross
- A thorn from the Crown of Thorns
- A piece of the stone from the Holy Sepulchre
- St. Demetrius
- St. John the Baptist
- St. Mary Magdalene
- St. Blase
- St. Stephen
- St. Anthony of Padua
- St. Celcilia
- St. Agnes
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