This Advent, we are presented with a most extraordinary grace. Our own parish will host a first-class relic — that is, an actual fragment of the body — of the Church’s newest saint, Carlo Acutis, this coming Saturday, November 22nd, from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. Only weeks ago, in the grandeur of St. Peter’s Basilica, before tens of thousands gathered in solemn joy, Pope Leo XIV declared this young fifteen-year-old, a bright spirit of the digital age, to be among the company of the saints. And now, through the kindness of his own mother, this sacred relic has been entrusted to us here in Vacaville. A touch of sanctity will be arriving here, in our very own town.

To modern ears, the veneration of relics may sound curious, even unsettling. It’s one of those ancient customs that is at the same time bizarre, unique, and wildly weird about the Catholic faith. Yet the practice reaches back to the dawn of Christianity, when believers gathered at the tombs of martyrs not to worship bones, but to draw near to the holiness that God had kindled in them. They understood that grace leaves its mark; the human body, once filled with the Spirit, is not discarded like a shell but honored as a vessel that once bore divine fire. To venerate the saints, then, is not to cling to superstition, but to glimpse, through them, what God intends for us all: that our very flesh might become radiant with His glory.

The first Christians knew well that the saints were men and women of dust, as frail and fallible as themselves. Yet in them they saw what grace could do. The martyrs in the amphitheatre, singing even as the beasts approached, were not displaying their own courage — they were displaying Christ’s triumph in human weakness. The ascetics in the desert, fasting and praying in solitude, were not exalting human will, but the will surrendered utterly to God. To venerate such lives was not to worship them, but to honor the Artist whose skill could carve holiness out of ordinary stone.

If we are wise, we will learn from this ancient instinct. For the Christian life is not meant to be a solitary ascent, a lone pilgrim trudging toward a distant summit. It is rather a great procession of souls, each carrying the light a little farther, each learning from the glow of the one before. When we remember the saints, we are reminded that sanctity is not beyond us. We are meant, in some measure, to become like them.

In truth, the saints are not competitors with Christ but His masterpieces. To honor them is to praise the grace that made them what they are. We can rejoice that the same grace that made holy is offered to us, here and now. This November 22nd, we can honor one of our brothers who made it home to Heaven, right here in Vacaville. I invite all of you to come for this special opportunity!