By Jessie Weisner

Relic with blood of former pope, Saint John Paul II visits local Catholic school

Apr 10, 2019 | 4:43 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — Students and staff from a local Catholic school had a rare opportunity Wednesday, to touch a relic from the very saint the school is named after.

A priest based in Strathmore made the trek to Medicine Hat to bring the relic to Ecole Saint John Paul II school.

It was a first class relic brought to the school, a vial of blood from the former pope, Saint John Paul II.

There are three types of Catholic relics. A third class relic is something a saint touched, a second class is something they owned and first class is something that was a part of them.

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Father Wojciech was invited to the school to show the relic, and host a veneration for students, allowing each one of them to touch it.

“Maybe give the students a chance to get closer to that relic,” says Father Wojciech. “To see something that is probably a little bit closer than they’ve ever been to John Paul II.”

“It felt like it almost made my relationship with him closer,” says Graydon Holowachuk, grade 5 student at Ecole Saint John Paul II school. “Or anyone who touched it with him closer because his presence was in that relic.”

Staff also participated in the veneration, with some of them even getting emotional.

“That’s part of our faith, we’re not alone on the journey to God,” says Father Wojciech “We’re actually with each other and all the saints who are basically helping us on the journey to get closer to God.”

Father Wojciech was invited to the school after local priest Father Iqbal realized he obtained the relic, he actually has a special connection to the it.

“I feel a little bit closer to Saint John Paul the second because when I was young, he was actually my bishop before he became a pope, so I was 6 years old when he was announced the Pope,” he said.

“For us it was very special for a couple of reasons. For one, we’d never had a Polish pope so that was definitely something very special but the second thing, Poland at that time was under the Communists and although we didn’t realize right away, he did help bring that system down and Poland regained its freedom, because of the pope, because of the values he proclaimed.”

The relic also made an appearance at the Holy Family Parish between 4 and 6 p.m.