Catholic university in the Bronx now houses large collection of relics

A relic of St. Thérèse of Lisieux (left) and a relic of St. Vincent de Paul (right) from the collection of relics housed at Manhattan University. / Credit: Archives of the De La Salle Christian Brothers

CNA Staff, Dec 27, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

In a hilly section of the Bronx you will find Manhattan University, a private, Catholic university established in 1853 by the Brothers of the Christian Schools, a lay order dedicated to education. The university has also become home to a large collection of holy relics.

Founded by Jean-Baptiste de La Salle in 1680, the Brothers of Christian Schools began to set up schools for poor boys to receive an education. The order quickly spread across France and other European countries and eventually spread around the world. The order is currently headquartered in Rome.

In recent decades, however, the order has been shrinking, with many of its schools and other institutions shutting down in North America. As a result, boxes of documents and objects — including an impressive collection of relics — from those facilities have made their way to Manhattan University.

Amy Surak, the archivist at the university, oversees this collection of relics on the college campus.

“I feel very blessed and incredibly fortunate to be around these honored, venerated objects that are so beloved and respected and hold so much power, really,” she told CNA in an email exchange.

While Surak doesn’t know the precise number of relics housed on the college campus, she said, “it’s easily in the hundreds.”

“I have photographed and inventoried at least over 200 thus far, but I am still opening boxes and finding them in our unprocessed collections,” she added.

One relic that particularly stood out to Surak is a relic of St. Thérèse of Lisieux.

“I’ve always been a bit infatuated by St. Thérèse, since I was a child,” she shared. “There’s something unique or attainable about performing small, pedestrian chores or acts in everyday life that can express one’s piety — it makes faith a bit more practical and within reach, at least it did for me when I was young.”

“When I came across her relics I kind of fan-girled out a bit. I felt like she was there as a reminder that small acts can have profound results,” she said.

Another relic held in high esteem is that of the order’s founder — a piece of the hip bone of La Salle, the popular saint who was canonized by Pope Leo XIII in 1900 and considered the patron saint of teachers.

Other valuable items in the collection include the vestments of a priest to be used for a canonization of a saint, papers with illustrations of seven La Salle Christian brothers martyred during the Spanish Civil War, and several thecas — small lockets containing little pieces of bone from the brothers.

At its peak in 1965, there were 16,000 Brothers of Christian Schools serving in 80 countries. Today, there are less than 3,000 in the order, though the number of countries they serve has not decreased. On the Manhattan University campus, there are 23 brothers, though many are now retired.