When a holy person dies and is later canonized a saint, the Church has a custom of distributing relics so as to promote veneration of that individual.
Relics are material items that are connected to a saint and are sorted into three “classes.” A first-class relic is all or part of the physical remains of a saint. This could be a piece of bone, a vial of blood, a lock of hair, or even a skull or the whole body.
A second-class relic is any item that the saint frequently used (clothing, for example). A third-class relic is any item that touches a first or second-class relic.
Catholics are known to preserve relics of saints and it is believed that graces from God are given to the devout souls who use these objects as a motivation for prayer. The goal is never to worship these physical items, but to be brought closer to God through them.
This practice has biblical roots, as can be seen in the Second Book of Kings and in Acts:
And so Elisha died and was buried. At that time of year, bands of Moabites used to raid the land. Once some people were burying a man, when suddenly they saw such a raiding band. So they cast the man into the grave of Elisha, and everyone went off. But when the man came in contact with the bones of Elisha, he came back to life and got to his feet. (2 Kings 13:20-21)
And in Acts:
So extraordinary were the mighty deeds God accomplished at the hands of Paul that when face cloths or aprons that touched his skin were applied to the sick, their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. (Acts 19:11-12)
A holy beard
In the case of St. Maximilian Kolbe, his entire body was burned in Auschwitz, leaving no part of his body intact or identifiable. If this was the end of the story, there would be no first-class relics of St. Maximilian Kolbe.
However, a friar at Kolbe's monastery in Poland had covertly stored the saint's beard when he last cut it. Kolbe objected to saving his beard and ordered the friar to throw it in the oven.
Jonah McKeown for CNA explained in an article how, "the fire was not lit, so the friar later retrieved it and stored it in a pickle jar, where it was later rediscovered and identified thanks to the label the friar had put on the jar."
Later on small pieces of Kolbe's beard were distributed as the only surviving first-class relic of the saint.
If it weren't for that friar, there would not exist any first-class relic of St. Maximilian Kolbe, a saint who has captivated the world with his sacrificial act of heroism.
His last few days on earth most recently inspired a movie entitled Triumph of the Heart, which has received acclaim from a wide variety of audiences.
