You realize that while you were experiencing this lifetime of Catholic practice, I was on the Junior High Sunday School Retreat at Panacea Falls.
My technical and canonical knowledge about relics would not fill a thimble. Still, there are two in my house. Both of them came to us on the day we were received into the Catholic Church. The first is a relic of Saint Francis. That is, it purports to be, and we take it at its word, maybe in the same way that the dotty poisoning sisters in Arsenic and Old Lace let Teddy go on thinking he’s digging the Panama Canal in the basement. Or maybe not. At any rate, a friend gave it to us — he had received it via some secret and circuitous channel not involving any exchange of funds on his part — and it has lived on the mantel, in a modest brass reliquary with what look like lapis lazulis, ever since.
