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    Stories of saints, biblical events, angels, and sacred places.

    The Column of the Flagellation displayed in a reliquary niche at the Basilica of Santa Prassede, Rome
    The Column of the Flagellation: The Pillar of Christ's Scourging
    The relic tradition holds Christ was bound to during his scourging, venerated in fragments at Rome's Santa Prassede and at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
    The silver and enamel reliquary housing the Corporal of Bolsena in Orvieto Cathedral, Italy
    The Corporal of Bolsena: The Relic Behind Corpus Christi
    The bloodstained altar linen from the 1263 Eucharistic miracle at Bolsena, preserved in Orvieto Cathedral, and the feast of Corpus Christi it inspired.
    The Crown of Thorns relic of Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris, displayed in its gold, crystal, and glass ring-shaped reliquary
    The Crown of Thorns of Notre-Dame: History of a Relic
    How a relic venerated as Christ's Crown of Thorns traveled from Jerusalem to Constantinople, then to Paris in 1239 — and survived the 2019 Notre-Dame fire.
    The original 1934 Divine Mercy painting by Eugeniusz Kazimirowski, showing Christ in a white robe with his right hand raised in blessing, red and pale rays streaming from his heart
    The Divine Mercy Image: Faustina's Vision and Its Two Paintings
    How Saint Faustina Kowalska's 1931 vision of Christ produced two famous paintings, what the red and pale rays mean, and how the devotion won full Church approval.
    The reliquary monstrance holding the flesh and blood of the Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano, displayed above the altar in the Church of San Francesco
    The Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano: Flesh, Blood, and a Doubting Monk
    The tradition of a doubting monk whose consecrated host turned to flesh in Lanciano, the 1971 analysis of the relic, and what the Church actually claims.
    The Corpus Christi Procession in Seville, an 1857 painting by Manuel Cabral y Aguado Bejarano showing the Great Monstrance of Juan de Arfe carried past Seville Cathedral
    The History of the Monstrance: From Simple Pyx to Golden Sunburst
    How a vessel for displaying consecrated bread became one of the most elaborate objects in Catholic art, from its medieval origins to Baroque sunbursts of gold.
    An early 16th-century carved boxwood rosary bead from Flanders, intricately detailed, now held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
    The History of the Rosary as an Object: From Knotted Cords to Strings of Beads
    How the rosary went from knotted prayer-cords and counted pebbles to the familiar string of beads — its materials, legends, and life as a sacramental.
    19th-century photograph of the Sacra Cintola, the Holy Girdle relic venerated at Prato Cathedral
    The Holy Girdle of Prato: Mary's Belt Given to Doubting Thomas
    The medieval legend behind the Sacra Cintola, the belt tradition says Mary dropped to the Apostle Thomas at her Assumption, now kept in Prato Cathedral.
    Sir Galahad kneeling before a vision of the Holy Grail, 1870 painting by Arthur Hughes
    The Holy Grail: Legend, the Last Supper Cup, and Catholic Teaching
    How a single line in Luke's Gospel grew into medieval Europe's greatest legend, and what the Church actually says about the chalices claimed as the real Grail.
    The Basilica della Santa Casa in Loreto, Italy, which encloses the Holy House
    The Holy House of Loreto: A Nazareth Cottage Enshrined in Italy
    Inside Loreto's basilica stands a small stone house venerated as the Nazareth home of the Holy Family — and a legend of angelic flight that archives complicate.
    Christ with the Symbols of the Passion, 1576 painting by Lavinia Fontana, showing an angel holding the three nails of the Crucifixion
    The Holy Nails: Relics of the Crucifixion Across Europe
    Tradition holds that Saint Helena recovered the nails of the Crucifixion along with the True Cross. Today, several churches — Milan's Duomo among them — claim one.
    Two angels holding the seamless tunic of Christ and the crown of thorns above the nave of Trier Cathedral, detail from an 1891 commemorative lithograph of the Holy Robe pilgrimage
    The Holy Tunic of Trier: The Seamless Robe Two Cities Both Claim
    Two churches both guard a garment said to be the seamless robe Christ wore at his death — here's their rival histories, and why Rome never settled which is real.
    The small wax-coated wooden statue of the Infant Jesus of Prague, dressed in an ornate robe and crown, displayed at the Church of Our Lady Victorious
    The Infant of Prague: A Statue's Journey from Spain to a Carmelite Altar
    The history of the Infant of Prague statue, its Spanish origins, the Carmelite friar's legend of broken hands restored, and its famous wardrobe of liturgical robes.
    The Holy Face image on cloth kept at the Shrine of the Holy Face in Manoppello, Italy
    The Manoppello Image: The Holy Face Cloth and the Veronica Theory
    The Manoppello Image is a face-bearing cloth some researchers link to the lost Veronica relic. Its history, the theory behind it, and unresolved questions.
    19th-century reverse-glass painting of the Virgin Mary appearing to Catherine Labouré at Rue du Bac in 1830, showing the globe, rays, and the inscription of the Miraculous Medal prayer
    The Miraculous Medal: Catherine Labouré's Vision and Its Meaning
    The 1830 apparition at Rue du Bac that gave the Church the Miraculous Medal, its prayer and symbols, and the dramatic conversion that made its name stick.
    Close-up of the original 1920 statue of Our Lady of Fatima, carved in cedar wood, wearing its jeweled gold crown inside the Chapel of the Apparitions
    The Original Statue of Our Lady of Fatima
    The 1920 cedar statue carved to Lúcia dos Santos's own description, crowned in 1946, and later fitted with the bullet from the 1981 attempt on John Paul II.
    A tall wooden memorial cross marking the original site of Kateri Tekakwitha's tomb near Kahnawake, Quebec, photographed in 1947, before her remains were later moved into the St. Francis Xavier Mission church
    The Relics of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha
    Witnesses said the smallpox scars on Kateri Tekakwitha's face vanished minutes after her death. Her bone relics now rest in a marble tomb at Kahnawake, Quebec.
    An 11th-century mosaic in St. Mark's Basilica, Venice, depicting the translation of the relics of Saint Mark
    The Relics of Saint Mark in Venice: A Theft That Built a Basilica
    How Venetian merchants reportedly smuggled Saint Mark's relics out of Alexandria under pork in 828 AD, and built a basilica and a civic identity around them.
    The gilded arm reliquary of Charlemagne, a life-size gold and silver forearm with the hand raised in blessing, from the treasury of Aachen Cathedral, now in the Louvre
    The Reliquary as an Art Form: Gold, Gems, and the Bones of Saints
    How Catholic goldsmiths turned humble bone fragments into some of the most dazzling objects in Western art, from Byzantine box-shrines to Cologne's golden towers.
    Front and back of a gold Saint Benedict medal, showing Benedict holding a cross and his Rule on the obverse, and the cross with its rows of Latin initials on the reverse
    The Saint Benedict Medal: History, Symbols, and Meaning
    How a 6th-century monk's cross became the Jubilee Medal of 1880, what its Latin letters and exorcism prayer actually mean, and how Catholics use it today.