Fr. Don’s Weekly Letter ~ 8 November 2026

Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

Since I became an adult I’ve had an uneasy relationship with relics. Certainly, devotion to saints should include strong remembrance, and things that remind us of them are important, both as examples of how we should live our lives, but also reminders to turn to them in celebration or need. And I understand the value of keeping things related to them, even to those who have gone before us, loved ones or significant people in our lives.

I have a well-worn five-inch cast-iron American Indian, the only toy that my eight year-old grandfather, John Schmid, brought with him on the boat when his family left Germany in 1908. When I hold it I imagine him holding onto it on the deck of the ship and wonder what he is thinking as he looks out at the endless ocean. I have this bakelite bowling trophy that my dad won at a tournament when he was a teenager. He once told me how proud he was of that trophy, because life on the farm during the depression in northwestern Missouri didn’t include a lot of happy time bowling.

When we were finally cleaning out the attic after my mom died, we came across the “hair picture” (as we called it), something we only saw rarely growing up. It was a deep shadowbox maybe 16 by 16 inches with an ornate, Victorian style bouquet of flowers woven out of her ancestors’ hair. Lots of hair, many-colored and slightly unraveling over the years. How many ancestors did this include? It was from my mom’s family. None of us brothers wanted it, it was more than slightly macabre. It seemed wrong to discard it, though.

If any of these people are saints (I pray so), then the first two are second class relics (things they touched) and the third, first-class because it is actually a part of them.

In the medieval and late medieval period, there was a particular frenzy surrounding relics, well-mixed with a good dose of superstition. If you had a relic, people assumed special blessings automatically came with it. And entire cities grew up around the churches that had them, as pilgrims would come from all over. So-called “pilgrim markets” became the early, economic stability of many of the great cities of Europe today. It is a mindset that might seem strange to us today. If you’d like a deeper dive just google what happened to St. Thomas Aquinas’ mortal remains after he died at the Cistercian Abbey of Fossanova. He was already famous, and a real opportunity for whomever had the goods.

But there is also something very beautiful about relic devotion. Think of it. Hopefully you had an experience of it when Saint Bernadette was here. Saint Bernadette was here... Well, not in the sense of a sit-down conversation or face-to-face. But that which was her (and still is preserved by God’s grace) is in our presence. There can be no denying her close proximity. This should be a source of great consolation to all who seek to know what she knows now and see what she sees. A link between heaven and earth.

When we interview our Confirmation Teams I ask them who the saint is in whose name they have chosen to be confirmed. They explain why, or what it was about that saint that spoke to them enough for them to choose their name. I encourage them to intentionally make a friendship with their saint: there are other ways of relationship than an audible conversation. Sit with them, ask them what they would do in this situation. Isn’t the name chosen a relic which will be a permanent reminder to them of that relationship? So much better than an Indian toy or a bowling trophy which I will never part with because I knew the people they recall for me. The hair picture? Well, we could toss that, I guess, because they were ancestors we never met.

We just celebrated All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days, an annual intentional act of recalling those we need and those who need us beyond the limits of death and birth. I believe that the veil between all of them and us is thin, indeed. Everytime we celebrate the Mass we do so in the presence of all the Communion of Saints, our great, great grandparents as well as our great, great grandchildren. Let us do what is necessary to remember them in our presence.

The Lord be with you,