Rome, Saints, and Relics ... oh my!

With today being the feast of the First Martyrs of Rome, I was thinking of how many relics I have seen when going to Rome.

Here's a sample from my trip to Rome last year. These are just "collections" of relics in various churches. This doesn't include all the more individual relics I have pictures of.

A side chapel at Il Gesu, the Jesuit church.

Turning around in the same side chapel the other wall has a similar collection.

A collection of relics related to the Passion of Our Lord. These are at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, a Cistercian church.

Here is the reliquary in Saint Paul's Outside the Walls.
(At the bottom, just to the right, in the midle of that case, that's the skull of Saint Ananias, the man who healed Saint Paul of his blindness at his conversion.)

I'm disappointed that I don't have a picture of the "Holy of Holies" at the top of the Sacred Steps which was one of the main "collections" of relics of the early martyrs in Rome.

Still, it's amazing to go to Rome and see so many relics from so many Saints and Martyrs. I think here in the United States, we are starved of these visible remains of those who have not just gone before us, but actually died for the Faith. It's much different to see major relics in these Roman and Italian churches that what we usually see here in the States: tiny specks of a bone or something in a tiny reliquary.

But here's to asking the early Roman Martyrs for their intercession for an increase of our Faith, especially here in the States where we are overrun by secularism in the world and apathy in many in the Church.

RS