Now in Honduras, soon to be in El Salvador, the relics of St. John Bosco are being taken to communities throughout Central America. The year 2015 will mark the 200th anniversary of John Bosco’s birth, and his relics have been on tour since June as part of the celebration. St. John Bosco is the founder of the Salesians and well-known for his work with youth.
A glass urn with a life-size statue of the saint contains the relics: bones from his right hand and forearm. The statue is a model of the one in the Basilica of Our Lady Help of Christians in Turin, Italy, where the remains of the saint rest. Salesian Father Tadeusz Rozmus reflected that the right hand of this saint is significant because with it he “blessed, wrote the [Salesian] constitutions, the Catholic letters and absolved sins.”
The saint’s relics are in Honduras until Wednesday, when they will travel to El Salvador.
The urn was already in Costa Rica and was also taken to Nicaragua. There, President Daniel Ortega and Cardinal Miguel Obando Bravo, retired archbishop of Managua, participated in a ceremony with the relics.
The relics will be in Mexico from Aug. 4 to Sept. 11, and from there go to the United States. In Mexico, the relics will be taken to 30 cities. Don Bosco’s relics were blessed on April 25 in Turin by the Salesian superior-general, Mexican Father Pascual Chávez Villanueva. During their five-year pilgrimage, they will be taken to some 130 countries.
MEXICO CITY, JULY 27, 2010 (Zenit.org)