Catholic church to host exposition of sacred relics

Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church will host an exposition featuring more than 150 holy relics Tuesday, July 23.

The Treasures of the Church display will start at 7 p.m. that day at the parish fellowship hall, located at the corner of South 3rd East and East Jackson Streets.

Fr. Carlos Martins, who heads the Treasures of the Church ministry, will start the evening with a discussion on the meaning and importance of these relics before the parish hall opens to public viewing. People will have an opportunity to venerate the relics of some of their favorite saints during the event.

Visitors are encouraged to bring articles of devotion, such as rosaries and holy cards, along with and pictures of ailing friends and family members. They can touch these items to the reliquaries as a means of intercessory prayer.

Expositions like this "give people an experience of the living God through an encounter with the relics of his saints in the form of an exposition," according to information from the Catholic organization.

Relics are physical objects with a direct association with the saints or with God and include three specific classes, the organization said.

First class relics are the body or fragments of the body of a saint, such as pieces of bone or flesh. Second class relics are something that a saint personally owned, such as a shirt or book, and could be a fragment of those items. Third class relics are items that a saint touched or were touched to a first, second or another third class relic of a saint.

Some of the relics featured at the upcoming exposition are believed to date back approximately 2,000 years. Among the relics being featured at Tuesday's exposition will include St. Francis of Assisi, St. Thomas Aquinas, John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene.

In addition, it will feature one of the largest relics of the Catholic church's claim to the True Cross -- the one believed was used to crucify Jesus Christ. It will also show a piece of the Veil that, according to sanctioned tradition, is believed to have belonged to Mary, the mother of Jesus.

The ministry travels throughout North America by invitation. To date, it has been hosted in 46 US states, as well as in Canada and Mexico.

For more information on the exposition, call the Catholic church at 587-3046.