Thousands welcome relics to St Mary’s

Sydney
14 April 2002

Thousands welcome relics to St Mary’s

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Thousands welcome relics to St Mary’s

By Johanna Bennett

She could be seen as the ultimate sentimental saint, but St Thérèse of Lisieux, also known as St Thérèse of the Roses, is much more than this.

In welcoming her relics to St Mary’s Cathedral last Sunday, Archbishop Pell called her a saint for modern times because, like so many of us, she doubted.

“Thérèse was one of us,” he said in his homily. “She was a modern woman who followed God.

“She knew the void of unbelief and she triumphed through expressing her love in small successes and failures.

“Despite the fact that she lived a life in an enclosed convent, she is a marvellous example for us to follow.”

The thousands who greeted the relics of the young French saint – she entered a Carmelite convent at just 15 and died of tuberculosis nine years later – had no doubts. They welcomed her with thousands of red roses; 2000 were sold at the cathedral door in the first three hours of her 24-hour visit.

And they collected the rose petals that rained down as her reliquary processed up the aisle to come to rest on a blue velvet draped table before an altar decked in roses of many hues.

They reverently touched the glass case covering the beautiful engraved box that holds some of her bones. And some left whole bunches of flowers.

The reliquary case gave off a charge like a small electrical impulse. There may be a scientific explanation for this, but there is also a mystical one.

The relics of St Thérèse arrived at St Mary’s on the second Sunday of Easter – now called Divine Mercy Sunday and quite appropriate for one who must have sought mercy as she died a suffocating death from tuberculosis, the most dreaded of diseases for many centuries.

This was when St Thérèse doubted, losing all the consolation of religion, falling into a “black hole, a dark night”, and would have committed suicide without her faith, said Archbishop Pell.

He sees her association with roses as a strength because the rose has the strongest of stems and also comes equipped with thorns.

It is a mistake to think of her as a weak and sentimental woman, he said.

The facts of St Thérèse’s life are simple. She was a young French Carmelite nun who died in 1897 when she was just 24.

But she also wrote a memorable book – a small book called Story of a Soul, her autobiography. It details her personal reflections as a child and young woman and astonishes those who read it with its powerful spiritual insights.

The book has never been out of print because for the many who feel too spiritually small to do great things for God it shows a way to find holiness through Thérèse’s ‘little way’ – her struggle for perfection based on overcoming the small everyday trials of life.

Relics may be one of the stranger aspects of Catholic life, but they have a long history.

The Church adopted the practice of veneration of relics – not worship – from the northern European pagan tribes.

Relics provide “a tangible link with the deceased and point beyond materialism to the spiritual and the sacred, and life beyond death”, said Archbishop Pell, explaining the Catholic practice of venerating the remains of saints.

St Thérèse’s relics have been touring the world since 1997 – the centenary of her death – and the numbers that have turned out to venerate them and pray before them have shown how enduringly popular she is.

In Mexico alone 15 million turned out to pray before her reliquary.

Up to three-quarters of Ireland’s population did so, too.

Sydney Catholics must also think her very special, given the numbers who turned up to pay their respects at the Solemn Mass to welcome her remains on Sunday morning, April 7. Many more went later to pray, queuing for hours for the privilege; the after-Mass queue snaked out of the cathedral door and down the steps, through Cathedral Square and along College St, past the Cook and Phillip Park Aquatic Centre, to William St.

The reliquary of St Thérèse was welcomed by Archbishop Pell, Sydney’s Carmelites and the Dean of St Mary’s, Monsignor Tony Doherty.

In his prayer of welcome, Mons Doherty thanked God for the visit of the relics to Australia and asked that the graces St Thérèse brought should inspire us to “spend our time on earth doing good for heaven, reaching out to the lonely, the poor and the weak, wherever they may be”.

People who were looking for simplicity in a complex world were “comforted by the simplicity of this little story”, he said.

“People are saying: ‘Oh, God, it’s so touching’,” he added.

“We are a story-filled people – not only the Bible, but the saints, our heroes, their stories help us make a sense of our own experience,” Mons Doherty said.

“Thérèse is unique in that we have photos of her and she wrote her story, her autobiography, something presumptuous and outrageous at the age of 24.”

The traffic had stopped so her reliquary could process slowly into the cathedral attended by a choir who serenaded her, while an archbishop led and her Carmelite brothers followed her.

And, later, the Chinese Catholic community held a special evening ceremony for St Thérèse, for which a poem of praise had been written in classical Chinese couplets – a charming gesture to an enduringly charming young saint, one who, while she achieved no fame in her lifetime, is now known and loved worldwide.

Cathedral officials estimate that as many as 20,000 visited the relics during the 24 hours they were at St Mary’s Cathedral.