Jubilee Year of St. Francis brings rare relic, historic art to San Francisco
A San Francisco exhibit running Oct. 16 to Nov. 28 displays a first-class relic of St. Francis’ blood, historic Franciscan art, models of California’s 21 missions, and an illuminated manuscript of the “Canticle of the Creatures.”. The exhibit marks the Jubilee Year of St. Francis and the 250th anniversary of Mission San Francisco de Asís, also known as Mission Dolores. The relic, preserved by Franciscan friars in La Verna, Italy, is associated with the side wound St. Francis received after experiencing the stigmata in 1224. Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has designated pilgrimage locations in the area for Catholics seeking a plenary indulgence during the jubilee year.
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San Francisco’s Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption is hosting an exhibit from Oct. 16 to Nov. 28, 2026, featuring a relic of St. Francis of Assisi, historic religious art, California mission models and an illuminated manuscript. The event marks both the Jubilee Year of St. Francis and the 250th anniversary of Mission San Francisco de Asís, also known as Mission Dolores.
The relic on display is a first-class relic of St. Francis’ blood, said to have come from the side wound associated with his stigmata. Franciscan friars at La Verna, Italy, have guarded it for 800 years, according to the article.
The exhibit also includes models of California’s 21 historic missions and an illuminated manuscript of the “Canticle of the Creatures,” commissioned by the Benedict XVI Institute. Artworks on view include Dono Doni’s Stigmata of Saint Francis and Crucifixion of Saint Francis, a painting of St. Francis attributed to Cimabue, a depiction of St. Clare’s veil, Adamo di Cladaro’s St. Francis, and a 17th-century painting of St. Francis watched over by angels.
The event is organized by the Knights of St. Francis of Assisi, the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, the cathedral and the Benedict XVI Institute. Knights founder Angela Alioto said the relic’s presence in the city felt especially fitting, while Franciscan Father Saul Tambini said the Franciscan presence had deeply shaped the area.
Pope Leo XIV decreed a special Year of St. Francis running from Jan. 10, 2026, to Jan. 10, 2027, calling on Christians to follow the saint’s example in holiness and as witnesses of peace. In San Francisco, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone designated pilgrimage sites where the faithful may seek a plenary indulgence, subject to the required conditions.
Mission San Francisco de Asís was founded on June 29, 1776, when its first Mass was celebrated, and formally dedicated that October. It is the only one of six missions in the broader Bay Area located within San Francisco itself. California’s 21 missions were established by Franciscan friars between 1769 and 1823 along the roughly 600-mile El Camino Real; many remain active parishes, museums or historical landmarks.
Catholic pilgrimage integrates relics, sacred art, and communal memory
Catholic pilgrimage brings together place, bodily signs of holiness, sacred images, and a community’s shared memory. The shrine is not simply a destination: the journey can become an act of conversion and hope, while the place and its devotional objects help pilgrims recall the Gospel and the witnesses who lived it. The pilgrimage’s meaning is fulfilled not by contact with objects alone, but by the pilgrim’s movement toward God and renewed life with others.
The Church’s Directory on Popular Piety describes pilgrimage as more than travel to a religious site. It is a concrete expression of the Christian life as a journey toward the Kingdom of God: the shrine offers a moment to reflect on humanity’s final hope, while the road itself can become a “journey of conversion.” A genuine pilgrimage should dispose the pilgrim to greater interior freedom and a more God-directed life.
This gives the physical journey spiritual significance. Setting out, enduring inconvenience, praying, and arriving can make visible the larger movement of faith: from distraction or self-reliance toward God. The shrine is an immediate destination, but not the ultimate one. In the Directory’s image, Christians remain travelers whose true homeland is still ahead.
Relics connect pilgrimage with the lived history of the Church. The Ukrainian Catholic Catechism describes pilgrimages to places where the relics of martyrs are venerated, and presents reported healings there as signs of God’s victory over suffering, illness, and death. It attributes such events not to the relics as independent sources of power, but to the grace of the Holy Spirit, the intercession of the righteous, and the faith of the pilgrims.
That qualification matters: relics are encountered within prayer and the Church’s memory of faithful witnesses. They help make the saints’ witness tangible, while the hoped-for healing points beyond the material object to God. Pilgrimage therefore joins bodily devotion with faith, without reducing the sacred to an object that works automatically.
A sacred place can help pilgrims recall the events of salvation because memory is often prompted by what people see and encounter in a particular location. A study of early Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem describes the city as a tangible link to Christ: its streets and landscapes prompted recollection of Jesus’ life, Passion, death, and Resurrection, as remembered in Scripture and liturgy. In that sense, the place helped the pilgrim enter more deeply into the Church’s memory of the Gospel.
Sacred art can serve a related purpose. A passage reproduced in the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s 2025 note describes the pilgrim’s gaze resting on an image that symbolizes God’s affection and closeness. The image is not the destination of the spiritual journey; it invites contemplation of the mystery the image signifies. In a Marian shrine, Pope Francis similarly describes pilgrims gathering before Mary’s statue and being led by her toward Jesus.
“The decision to set out toward the shrine is already a confession of faith; walking is a true song of hope; and arrival is the encounter of love.”
The sequence is revealing: pilgrimage involves the whole person. The decision expresses faith; the journey embodies hope; and arrival opens onto an encounter of love. The image can help concentrate the pilgrim’s attention, but the devotion is ordered toward God rather than ending with the artwork itself.
Pilgrimage also gathers people into a shared act of remembrance. The Directory notes that pilgrimage historically had religious and social dimensions, bringing people from different regions together and helping shape the life of Christian communities.
Pope Francis describes a shrine as keeping alive the memory of a faithful people who continue to seek hope amid hardship. He says that going on pilgrimage can help people recognize themselves as a people, carrying different languages, cultures, and traditions, and journeying together. The shared act does not erase painful or divided histories; rather, he says, pilgrims are called to seek fellowship and to turn resentments and mistrust into new opportunities for living together.
This is communal memory in a specifically Christian sense: the past is remembered not merely to preserve a group’s identity, but to renew faith and shape how people live together now. The shrine, the image, the relic, and the gathered community each contribute differently: a place evokes the Gospel; an image focuses contemplation; a relic recalls a saint’s witness; and the assembly makes visible a people still on the way.
These elements belong together, but they are not interchangeable. A relic or image can prompt prayer and remembrance; it does not replace conversion, hope, or the journey toward God. The Directory’s practical test is whether the pilgrim returns intending to amend his or her life and live more closely ordered to God.
So the statement that Catholic pilgrimage integrates relics, sacred art, and communal memory captures an important pattern: pilgrimage makes faith bodily and shared. Its objects and places recall what God has done and the lives of those who bore witness to him; its community carries that memory together; and its journey points beyond the shrine toward the Kingdom.