Faithful pay homage to much-loved saint

A worshipper pauses to reflect beside the reliquary in St Patrick's Cathedral. Picture / Richard Robinson

A young French nun who never left her convent but dreamed of becoming a missionary has achieved her wish, 108 years after her death.

The bones of Catholic superstar St Therese of Lisieux arrived at St Patrick's Cathedral in Central Auckland yesterday on the last leg of a world tour.

Her remains, encased in a small coffin inside an ornately gilded, 180kg reliquary, were lifted by eight bearers from a specially sign-written "Theresemobile" in front of a crowd of about 100 people, many of them fingering rosary beads.

St Therese, known as "the Little Flower", has incredible pulling power in the Catholic world, and her remains have been on the road for much of the last decade. She drew 1.5 million people during an Australian tour two years ago, two million in Canada and three million in Ireland.

The reliquary was airfreighted from Australia to New Zealand in a stout black packing case.

Therese, born in 1873, was a Carmelite nun by 15, and dead of tuberculosis by 24. What elevated her to sainthood were her memoirs, which documented her childlike devotion and total surrender to God.

Her writings, published as The Story of a Soul the year after her death, led to her canonisation in 1922; no miracles were required.

For Faleanaoti Vitale, who threw pink and red rose petals over the reliquary as it entered the cathedral, the moment was overwhelming. A black lace scarf over her hair and tears welling in her eyes, Ms Vitale said: "I can feel her presence."

What does that feel like?

"Divine. It's God's grace and it makes me proud to have this opportunity to welcome her."

Father Bernard Kiely, who led special services for St Therese yesterday, said the cathedral was left open all night so people could visit before the relics leave at 10am today.

"The fact that people are drawn here shows that there is a yearning, that even psychologists acknowledge, for the divine."

Lyndsay Freer, the national director of Catholic Communications, likens St Therese's importance to the faithful to the country's veneration of the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, or visiting the gravesite of a loved one.

"Saints become saints because of the goodness and purity of their lives. This is a veneration and an honouring for what she represents and who she was."