Safely secured in its own custom-built glass case, what's claimed to be the 506-year-old right forearm of St Francis Xavier will be taken to Catholic churches across the state for the next six days.
The mummified relic, which still has flesh and all fingers intact, was given its own seat on the plane for the long flight from Rome to Australia last month.
It was accompanied by New South Wales Bishop Peter Comensoli, who gained permission from Rome's Church of the Gesu, to take the relic on a 23-city tour of Australia to mark the Catholic Church's Year of Grace.
Father Robin Koning, a Jesuit priest and theology lecturer at MCD University of Divinity in Kew, said he believed the saint's forearm had left the Church of the Gesu only four times and ''certainly never been to this side of the world.
In Rome, it's kept at some distance so people can't get as close to it as they can here and they will be allowed to touch the glass reliquary.
A large part of St Francis Xavier's work was baptising, so [when alive] he would have used [the arm] for blessing people, writing letters and tending the sick,'' he said.