Display of Relics at Trinità dei Pellegrini for All Saints’ Day

Since today is the day on which the feast of the Holy Relics has most commonly been kept since St Pius X’s reform of the breviary and calendar, it’s a good day to show these pictures taken by a friend at the Fraternity of St Peter’s church in Rome, Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini. For many years now, it has been the church’s custom to expose all its relics for the veneration of the faithful on All Saints’ day. In the evening, before Vespers, each reliquary is presented before the congregation, and the name of the Saint or Saints whose relics in it are read out.

The high altar decorated for Mass of the feast.

The busts seen here on the upper level were made in 1622 for the canonization of St Philip Neri, who founded the church’s confraternity. On the left side are two Saints of the era of the Fathers, Gregory the Great and Augustine, and on the right, two of the Counter-Reformation, Pope Pius V and Charles Borromeo; the two popes are placed closer to the cross. The silver busts on the lower level contain relics of Saints from the catacombs; to either side of each one are statues of Apostles, Peter and Paul, John and Matthew, the latter because he is the patron of the confraternity.

Many more reliquaries are placed on the altar of St Matthew in the right transept, with one of St Philip in a place of special prominence in the middle.  (The church has another very beautiful reliquary of him in bronze, which is, however, too heavy to easily lift when the relics are presented to the faithful.)

Over the altar are written the words of the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in the Communion of the Saints”, because in the church’s original set up, this altar was intended to the used primarily for Masses for the Dead. 

At the back of the church on the left side is an altar dedicated to the Holy Cross. This altar is also for the celebration of Requiem Masses; since the FSSP took over the running of the church, it has been decorated with an image of Our Lady of Sorrows, and a set of wooden candlesticks painted black. For the exposition of relics, the church’s piece of the True Cross is set here by itself as a place of special honor.

During the presentation of relics, the reliquaries are moved to the high altar.