Saskatoon will welcome relics of St. Kateri Tekakwitha and three Canadian martyrs as one stop on a national tour

The National Shrine to the Canadian Martyrs at Midland, ON, is embarking on a cross-Canada tour with relics of St. Jean de Brebeuf, St. Charles Garnier, St. Gabriel Lalemant, and St. Kateri Tekakwitha. The relics will be in Saskatoon on Jan. 24, 2025. (Image courtesy of Martyrs' Shrine)

Posted By: Kiply Lukan Yaworski December 13, 2024

A national tour of the relics of three Canadian martyrs and St. Kateri Tekakwith will include a stop at the Cathedral of the Holy Family in Saskatoon on Friday, Jan. 24, beginning with an Opening/the Rosary at 5:30 p.m., Mass at 6 p.m. with Bishop Mark Hagemoen, followed by veneration of the relics and opportunities for confession until 9 p.m.  (updated Jan. 13, 2025).

Media release from the National Shrine to the Canadian Martyrs

The major relics of the Canadian Martyrs, including the skull of St. Jean de Brébeuf and bones of St. Charles Garnier and St. Gabriel Lalemant, will be travelling across Canada for the first time in 2025.

The relics have resided principally at the National Shrine to the Canadian Martyrs in Midland, Ontario for the past hundred years. The three Jesuit saints are among the eight French missionaries who first brought the Gospel to Canada, and were martyred during the Huron-Iroquois Wars of the early 1600s.

Also part of the national tour will be the relic of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first indigenous North American saint, who was canonized in 2012 and is a beloved patron of the First Nations peoples.

The purpose of the devotional tour is to bring the relics to parts of Canada whose people cannot easily visit the Martyrs’ Shrine, giving more Canadians an opportunity for an encounter with the relics of these great saints, and to receive the graces of healing and reconciliation for themselves, their families, and our country.

Beginning in late December 2024, the relics will tour western Canada, returning to Martyrs’ Shrine for the summer season and continuing with an eastern Canada tour in the fall of 2025.

Western Canada tour schedule:

  • Dec. 31 – Catholic Christian Outreach Rise-Up Conference, Calgary, AB
  • Jan. 3 – Strathmore, AB
  • Jan. 4 – Calgary, AB
  • Jan. 5 – Tsuu T’inna, AB
  • Jan. 11 – Agassiz, BC
  • Jan. 12 – Vancouver, BC
  • Jan. 14 – Duncan, BC
  • Jan. 18 – Kamloops, BC
  • Jan. 19 – Prince George, BC
  • Jan. 22 – Edmonton, AB
  • Jan. 23 – St. Paul, AB
  • Jan. 24 – Saskatoon, SK (Cathedral of the Holy Family)
  • Jan. 26 – Regina, SK (Resurrection of the Lord Church)
  • Feb. 2 – Winnipeg, MB
  • Feb. 9 – St. Boniface, MB
  • Feb. 10 – Thunder Bay, ON

View a video about the tour on the Martyrs’ Shrine website: martyrs-shrine.com/relic-tour

About Martyrs’ Shrine

Located in Midland, ON, Martyrs’ Shrine is a national sacred and historic site honouring St. Jean de Brébeuf and the Jesuit missionaries of the 17th century, as well as Canada’s first Indigenous Christians, the Wendat Martyrs of Huronia.
-30-

Communications and Catholic Saskatoon News are supported by gifts to the Bishop’s Annual Appeal: dscf.ca.