‘Treasures of the Church’

ROCKAWAY  Like many of the more than 400 Catholics, who traveled to St. Cecilia Church here on the evening of March 7, Amy Welsch, a faith-filled married mother of six, came with a mission: to find a saint to become her new spiritual companion. A parishioner of St. Cecilia’s, she was looking for some help through a tough time — her 17-year-old daughter, Alexis, recently had been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease.

That Thursday night, Welsh and hundreds of faithful from the Diocese and beyond visited St. Cecilia’s to try to find new special spiritual “friends,” as they viewed and venerated more than 150 relics of Jesus, the Blessed Mother and numerous Saints. They were housed in their own reliquaries as part of the “Treasures of the Church” exposition. The Houston-based ministry recently brought its collection — the largest traveling display in the world — to three churches in the Diocese, including to St. Cecilia’s, as a way to evangelize the people, who view them, most for the first time, and to re-energize their faith. This collection travels around the world.

“All of these saints struggled in their lives. I’m looking for a saint who will walk with us on our new journey,” said Welsch, who lined up with the rest of the crowd, which ranged from children to seniors, to file past the relics displayed on rows and rows of tables in Hayes Hall in St. Cecilia’s church basement. “There are relics of saints here, who can help us turn away from sin and make good choices,” she said.

Also like her fellow pilgrims, Welsch stopped at many of the relics to pick them up in their reliquaries, except for a few too fragile for them to handle. Participants prayed before the relics; touched parts of them to their bodies or touched them to religious objects, such as rosaries, or photos of family and friends, as a form of intercessory prayer; and snapped photos of them. Welsch brought a photo of Alexis to touch to the relics as a source of healing and read the biological sketches on placards next to the relics to find a saint as a new special spiritual “friend.”

Hayes Hall was filled with relics that included a piece of wood from the Cross of Jesus and a fragment of a veil worn by the Blessed Mother. From fragments of hair, bones and clothing, the collection also included relics of the Twelve Apostles and some of the most beloved saints, including St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Cecilia and St. Faustina Kowalska. The event represented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for local faithful, especially for those who are unable to travel to places of pilgrimage.

On the recent tour, Father Carlos Martins, a member of the Houston-based Companions of the Cross community, accompanied the exhibition, which also visited St. Mary Parish, Dover, on March 2, and St. Vincent de Paul Parish Stirling, on March 11. During his visits, the priest gave a multi-media presentation and catechesis on relics and about the saints’ lives.

“Tonight, a saint here is trying to befriend you. You can find a connection with a saint that is new and easy. Your job is to find out, who that is. You can pray for that saint. Then [once you have found him or her], you can include that saint in your prayer life, so he or she can intercede for you,” said Father Martins, a former atheist, in his hour-long talk in St. Cecilia Church on March 7, before those in attendance headed downstairs to venerate the relics. He also spoke about healing miracles that have taken place before the relics. “I promise that if you give God your heart totally and freely, you will experience the presence and power of the living God tonight in a way that you’ve never experienced before,” the priest told the audience.

During his talk, which included a slide presentation, Father Martins also told congregants that the Vatican is offering them a plenary indulgence — the removal of all temporal punishment due for our sins — for their participation at St. Cecilia’s that night. To obtain it, they also have to pray for Pope Francis and his intentions, go to confession within 20 days, receive the Eucharist also within 20 days and make the decision to eliminate all sin from their lives, the priest said.

At the ambo of St. Cecilia’s, Father Martins also urged the faithful to develop or continue to maintain a close relationship with God by attending Mass, going to confession, disclosing all their sins and extending forgiveness to people who have hurt them. He also suggested that Catholics look to the example of St. Maria Goretti, a young Italian girl, who forgave her killer, before she died — an act that eventually inspired her mother to forgive the killer and adopt him as her own son. Also, Maria’s killer changed his angry heart, became an evangelist in prison and later became a Capuchin Franciscan brother. She was canonized a saint in Rome in 1950, the priest said.

“The story would not have had a happy ending if Maria had not chosen to forgive and be a saint. Maria put her faith in God, who demands that we forgive our enemies,” Father Martins said.

A few days later at Masses on March 9-10 weekend at St. Therese Parish, Paterson, Father Carlos Moreno, administrator, displayed storyboards with photos of many of the traveling relics, including one of the faith community’s patron saint, and spoke about their significance in Catholic spirituality. The administrator distributed to the congregation religious medals of the Blessed Mother and various saints — third-class relics, because they had been touched to first- or second-class reliquaries.

At St. Cecilia’s, Father Zig Peplowski, pastor, briefly stopped on his walk around the relics that night to tell The Beacon about his own miraculous healing. For years, he has suffered from infections in his left ear; one of them started on that Thursday and was getting worse throughout the day. While perusing the “Treasures of the Church” collection earlier in the day, he put relics of Ss. Cosmas and Damian, both Arab doctors, to his ear and prayed for healing. The next morning, the infection was gone, leaving him ready to celebrate an early Mass.

“I have been receiving wonderful compliments about this [the hosting of the relic collection],” Father Peplowski said. “I’m overwhelmed. I never expected this to be as popular and attract as many people as it has. It’s a testament to the faith of the Catholic people and their devotion,” he said.

That night Ian Martin, a 26-year-old St. Cecilia’s parishioner, walked around with several rosaries to touch to some of various mostly first-class relics and a few second-class relics. The middle-school teacher told The Beacon that he found St. Maria Goretti’s story of forgiveness inspiring in light of the child sex-abuse report issued by the Attorney General of Pennsylvania — “horrible news that hurt me and everybody else.”

“The saints give an example to strive for. They all had challenges in their lives,” said Martin, who sought out the relics of the Wood of the Cross, St. Cecilia and St. Maria Goretti. “This was interesting and powerful to see. This event might introduce people to saints they never heard of and help them develop a devotion to them,” he said.