Archbishop Fisher: Holy relics are not ‘just a quirky Catholic thing’

Standing before the casket containing the incorrupt body of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and the tomb of St. Catherine of Siena in Rome, Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney told a packed basilica of young jubilee pilgrims that holy relics are “not just a quirky Catholic thing — they are a quirky God thing.”

The Australian Dominican archbishop delivered the homily at the closing Mass of the weeklong public veneration of Frassati’s body during the Jubilee of Youth, a celebration that drew 1 million Catholic young people to the Eternal City.

“It’s a quirky thing, that Catholics so honor their dead and the remains of the dead,” Fisher said. “I was asked once by a radio host, ‘What’s this thing with Catholics and bones?’ I explained that the relics of saints are sacramentals: Sites where God imparts graces of healing and strength through the intercession of the faithful ones whose relics they are.”

“Through ‘this Catholic thing with bones,’” he added, “we honor the person who was and look forward to the person who will be again — but now purified, restored, glorified.”

“In reverencing the remains of our loved ones and especially the saints, we proclaim our faith in the holy Catholic Church and the communion of saints, but also in the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting!”

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