Editorial: Inspiring Little Way

Sydney
24 March 2002

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Editorial: Inspiring Little Way

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Editorial: Inspiring Little Way

The idea of relics doesn’t sit well with rational, technological 21st century society. But this is not the first time a saint’s relics have visited Australia.

Twenty-five years ago the relics of the Marist martyr, St Peter Chanel, came to Sydney. His relics were the first to come to Australia.

Relics themselves are not as unusual as we might think. It is not uncommon for pilgrims to visit the grave or shrine of a saint; this time the saint has come to us.

There are secular pilgrimages, such as visits to Anzac Cove on April 25, that aim to help a new generation appreciate the sacrifice that was made for peace and freedom.

Pilgrims visit the graves of holy people to acquire something of their spirit. The visit makes the saint, and the saint’s witness to Christ, more real to the pilgrim. Similarly, with St Thérèse, the visit of her relics gives us the opportunity to reflect on her life and what it means to us.

St Thérèse’s popularity rests on her philosophy of the Little Way – the idea that ordinary people can aspire to holiness through performing the acts of their everyday lives in a good and decent fashion; an everyday kind of sanctity.

A good example of this – and of how hard everyday sanctity can be to achieve – was Thérèse’s own struggle to get along with a fellow Sister who really irritated her. But, so successful was she that the latter thought herself a favourite of Thérèse’s and the Little Flower’s beloved sister, also a nun, became jealous of the relationship. But, oh, how Thérèse struggled! A struggle that reminds us that the little everyday things mean a lot and are often hard-won too.

The visit of St Thérèse’s reliquary gives us a wonderful opportunity to reflect on this and on her not-such-a-Little Way. It is appropriate that the reliquary’s 90 days of grace in Australia should take place over the Lent and Easter period – a time of reflection itself.

However, Bishop Ingham, whose diocese the relics visit this week, cautions us that no superstition or suggestion of magic should adhere to the relics. Having Thérèse’s remains with us is a way for us to focus on her life and what her life and her Little Way mean to us today.

It may inspire us to learn more about the lessons she struggled to learn in the modest little Carmelite community she entered in the French village of Lisieux at the age of 15.

The youngest of nine children of a comfortable middle-class family, she was seen initially as a petted child who had never scrubbed floors, but soon had to learn how to do so.

Her Little Way was a hard-won way, make no mistake.