Team Herald
PANJIM: Three years ago, multitudes of Catholics filed past the relics of St Francis Xavier at the decadal exposition. Thousands others do it daily, pausing below the mausoleum when the relics lie, looking upward and whispering a prayer to the Saint.
It is, however, a known fact that the relics are missing many body parts, one of them being the arm and hand of the Saint, which was cut off and sent to the Jesuit Mother Church Gesu in Rome on the request of the Superior General of that order.
This arm and hand will soon be travelling from Rome, crossing the Atlantic for Canada, where it will remain for a month, going around the country, as part of an initiative from the university group Catholic Christian Outreach, with the aim to get university students come alive in their faith.
Catholic News Agency reports that the severed arm, will be travelling encased in a gold and glass reliquary with its own padded duffle bag, on its own seat on Air Canada.
Accompanying the arm will be Angèle Regnier, co-founder of Catholic Christian Outreach, who has been quoted by CNA as saying, “We can’t put it underneath. We can’t even put it in the overhead bins. Like, he has to have his own seat. You’re trying to explain this to Air Canada. We need to book a seat. He is a person in a way, but it’s not a person, it’s an arm.”
The new agency report also explains that in the Catholic Church, relics are physical objects that have a direct association with the saints or with Jesus, with the arm considered a first class relic.
This particular arm has also a special significance as it is with this arm that St Francis Xavier baptised hundreds of thousands of people in Asia, in the 10 years he spent in the continent.
