Pilgrim relics of Saint Thérèse starts 5th visit to PHL on Jan. 2
FOR the fifth time, devotees of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus will again be able to venerate her pilgrim relics during a visit to the Philippines starting on January 2, 2023.
The visit coincides with the historic dates in the saint’s life— her 150th birth anniversary on January 2, and the centennial of her beatification on April 30, 2023, which will be the end of the pilgrim relics’ tour.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) prays that through this visit, “we continue to learn more profoundly about her life and the message of God’s gift of merciful love through her Way of Spiritual Childhood. By her example and intercession, Saint Thérèse continues to enrich the lives of Filipino people.”
The CBCP endorsed the Military Ordinariate of the Philippines, as the Shrine of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus on Newport Boulevard, Pasay City, is also the Diocesan Shrine of the MOP.
The pilgrim relics of Saint Thérèse have visited the Philippines in 2000, 2008, 2013 and 2018.
Coming after the celebration of the 500th Year of Christianity in the Philippines and the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, the relics’ visit will call on the 54 archdioceses and dioceses, who invited Saint Thérèse to join the Catholic Church celebration of Synod on Synodality. Hence, the visit’s theme is, “Lakbay tayo Saint Thérèse! Ka-alagad, Kaibigan, Ka-misyon.”
The relics will visit as far as Tabuk, Kalinga province, in the Cordillera Administrative Region in the north, to Jolo, Sulu, in Mindanao in the south.
In honor of her 150th birthday, the National Organizing Committee (NOC) of the relics’ visit is sharing the honor of hosting and inviting generous devotees to make up 150 Patrons of the Pilgrim Relics, whose gift will make possible Saint Thérèse visit to the homes and hearts of every Filipino.
The welcome ceremony will be held on January 2, at the Shrine of St. Thérèse at 4 p.m. with a civic reception followed by a welcome Mass with the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown, as presider and homilist, the NOC said.
The theme song of the relics’ fifth visit will be unveiled at the close of the Mass. It was the winner of the Song Writing Competition held in cooperation with Jesuit Music Ministry (JMM).
The song is “Walk With Us, Dear Thérèse,” with lyrics by Francis Edward Baasis, and music by Leonard Laurio, the JMM announced on its Facebook page.
Coming second in the competition is the song, “St. Thérèse, Kaalagad, Kaibiga’t Ka-misyon,” by Gerardo Millan Ebarle.
The third placer is “Santa Teresa Aking Gabay,” with the lyrics by Sheryl Avanceña and music by Kirby Guevara.
As in the previous visits of Saint Thérèse Relics, the MOP is generously supported by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police, Philippine Army, Philippine Navy, Philippine Air Force, Bureau of Fire Prevention, Philippine Coast Guard, Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, Bureau of Customs, and many generous devotees and followers of Saint Thérèse.
Parents also saints; sisters were nuns
SAINT Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, her religious name, is also known as Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, having entered the Carmelite Monastery in Lisieux.
She was born on January 2, 1873, in Alençon, France. She died on September 30, 1897, at the age of 24.
Her pious parents, Saints Louis Martin and Marie-azélie Guérin, were canonized by Pope Francis on October 18, 2015. They were the first spouses to be canonized together as a couple.
She was the youngest of nine children, and among the five who survived. Her four elder sisters also became nuns.
Her sister, Léonie Martin, the only one of the five sisters who did not become a Carmelite nun, is also a candidate for sainthood.
St. Thérèse is a patron saint of missions and of florists.
She entered the Carmelite Monastery of Lisieux at the young age of 15 after obtaining a permission from Pope Leo XIII.
Third woman Doctor of the Church
ONE of the most popular Catholic saints, Saint Thérèse was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II in 1997— 100 years after her death at the age of 24.
She is the third woman to be so proclaimed, after Saint Catherine of Siena and Saint Teresa of Avila.
As a Doctor of the Church, she is the subject of much theological comment and study, and as an appealing young woman, whose message has touched the lives of millions, she remains the focus of much-popular devotion, the primer on the pilgrim relics’ visit said.
Relics are the remains of a saint or holy person after death, as well as the objects sanctified by contact with his or her body.
The Catholic faithful venerate the relics of saints because as intercessors with God for the living, through their relics—a record of the saint—god manifests His presence.
“To welcome the relics of Saint Thérèse is to welcome the saint herself,” the primer said.
“In the presence of and contact with her [Saint Thérèse] mortal remains, God, who had received from her so many acts of love when she was alive here on Earth, is pleased to manifest His love through the remains of her humanity,” the primer said.
Since her death, millions have been inspired by her “little way” of loving God and neighbor. Many miracles have been attributed to her intercession.
She had predicted during her earthly life that “My Heaven will be spent doing good on Earth.”
St. Thérèse wrote: “You know well enough that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.”
The book, “Story of a Soul,” discusses the saint’s spiritual development and pursuit of holiness.