Two holy relics of Saint Anthony of Padua will visit the Diocese of Savannah, Georgia, from Friday, February 22 to Sunday, March 3. The Bishop of Savannah Gregory Hartmayer OFM Conv. has invited Father Bortolino Maistrello, a friar of the Basilica, to bring two holy and precious relics of Saint Anthony of Padua to his Diocese in Georgia.
This relic visit will therefore be an “on the road” tour as the relics will visit churches in each of the seven diocesan deaneries: Albany, Augusta, Columbus, Macon, Savannah, Statesboro, and Valdosta/Brunswick.
One of these reliquaries contains the Saint’s floating rib. This is the very same reliquary that was used by then-Archbishop Bergoglio to bless the faithful after the Solemn Mass at the Catedral Metropolitana in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 30 April 2000. The same reliquary had been kissed five years earlier by Sister Lucia of Fatima when it was taken to the nuns at the Monastery of Carmelite sisters in Coimbra, Portugal, in January 1995, during the commemorations for the 800th anniversary of the Saint’s birth.
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