BOSTON -- It's not hard to get a saint through airport security, says Franciscan Father Alessandro Ratti.

Father Ratti, a Conventional Franciscan friar from the Basilica of St. Anthony in Padua, travels throughout the world with a first-class relic of the saint -- a floating rib bone, taken from St. Anthony's body when it was exhumed for scientific study in 1981. Father Ratti said that visiting the saint's devotees across continents is like a family reunion.

"It's not a problem," he said. "Absolutely. Nobody would hurt St. Anthony."

Father Ratti transports the reliquary in a small suitcase, which remains by his side at all times. He never ships it or allows it to go in an airplane's cargo hold, though he's not concerned about losing the relic. After all, St. Anthony is the patron saint of lost items.

"He can look after himself and not be lost," Father Ratti said.

St. Anthony is his carry-on luggage, but the way he sees it, it's the other way around. He thinks of himself as the saint's travel companion.

"He is the one waited for at these festivals, or at the days in his honor," he said. "And we are just the friars accompanying him."

Father Ratti spoke to The Pilot at the headquarters of the St. Anthony Society in Boston's North End, which recently linked itself with the Archconfraternity of St. Anthony in Padua. Statues of saints lined the back of the dimly lit bar, including St. Joseph reclining behind a neon Sam Adams sign. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin played over the speakers. Society members embraced and kissed. It was Aug. 28, the first day of the 106th annual St. Anthony's Feast, and Father Ratti had brought the relic to the North End for the occasion.

"Having the relics is really getting us back to the roots of the entire celebration, so that now we actually have a piece of St. Anthony being with us at this time," said Father Michael Della Penna, pastor of St. Leonard of Port Maurice Parish in the North End. "So, for me, it's such a beautiful experience to have us come together as a neighborhood and celebrate one of our own Franciscan saints, one of the greatest saints in our church that always helps us to grow closer to Jesus."

Father Della Penna and Father Ratti warmly greeted feastgoers outside the society's headquarters. A jaunty tarantella sounded from the restaurant next door. The surrounding street was closed, packed with carnival games and vendors selling pizza, ravioli, meatballs, and tripe.

"It's quite colorful," Father Ratti said. "It's a typical southern Italian street festival for a saint. And I think this one has kept all the flavor. Maybe you cannot find such a lively festival in Italy nowadays. But here it is, still as 100 years ago."

St. Anthony Society President Michael Bonetti, who helped establish the society's relationship with the Archconfraternity in Padua, pinned pink ribbons of St. Lucy onto Father Della Penna and Father Ratti's habits. The procession of the 100-year-old statue of St. Lucy, carrying her gouged-out eyes, is a foretaste of the weekend's festivities.

"I prepared St. Lucy this morning with the fresh flowers at the bottom, a coat of gold, her ribbons, washed her, and tomorrow we prep St. Anthony early in the morning," Bonetti said.

He was born two doors down from the society's headquarters and has participated in its activities since he was five. To Bonetti, the "feast of all feasts," as it is known, is "like Christmas in August."

"Every year, it's the same feeling," he said. "Never goes away. I always say this, you get chills when the street is all set up."

In the society's chapel, the statue of St. Lucy was festooned with flypaper for devotees to affix dollar bills to. St. Anthony's statue was waiting in the wings for the same treatment. Manufactured in a Charlestown factory, its face was custom-built to be an exact replica of a statue in Montefalcione, Italy. Immigrants from that town established the feast in the North End.

"Everything changes," Bonetti said. "But the feast is a constant in our life."

The relic of St. Anthony has appeared at the feast four times during its history, most recently for its 100th anniversary in 2019.

"This relic is really, really special," Bonetti said. "And what's so special about this one is it's the bone that's closest to the heart in the body, the heart of the saint."

In recent years, Bonetti has "built up a great rapport" with the basilica in Padua. Getting the relic from Italy to the North End is a complex process which requires the Archbishop of Boston to receive permission from the basilica. Bonetti said that since St. Anthony is one of the most beloved saints in the Catholic Church, "there's only so much of him that can go around."

"It's an honor to do it every year," He said, adding: "It's a complicated process. It's not an easy thing. It's a lot of communication, a lot of work over a year trying to get them here."

His own devotion to St. Anthony has only grown stronger since the feast's 100th anniversary and the pandemic, which saw masked and gloved crowds come out to venerate the saint. He said St. Anthony is not only his patron, but his friend and brother.

"It's a very meaningful experience to have him around us," he said.

Father Ratti said that holding the reliquary is like shaking hands with an old friend.

"I think relics are our specific way of relating to a person," he said. "We are not only spirit, we are spirit embodied with flesh and bones. So we need something to look at, something to touch, so as to relate to one another."