The photo above is of the former Redemptorist novitiate house, with relics of numerous saints (Redemptorist and otherwise), in Nongkhai, northeast Thailand.

It’s beautiful. The relics line the walls, like the saints form that great “cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1) around us, witnessing to us, to God, to all that is (for they see all in the Beatific Vision), yet acutely concerned with our particular lives below, especially in the particularities that coincide with their own lives and understandings. Then, all points towards the Crucifix and the Eucharistic sacrifice and banquet, with even the saints present in their relics within the sanctuary.

And that’s really how it is in every church – and at every moment in this present world, for every heart in a state of grace is a microcosm of all this: Christ dwells within, and with him the whole Church of Heaven and the Eucharistic desire which draws such graces even more.