DAVAO CITY—Mindanao gave a rousing and grand welcome to the pilgrimage to the Philippines of the relics of the Catholic Church’s well-loved Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, surprising organizers who said this year’s visit was also well-timed with important Church events.
Secular Carmelite Bro. Froilan Torres, OCDS, one of the organizers of the visit of the pilgrim relics, said the welcome that Mindanao accorded the relics was “indescribable, probably incredible and inspiring.”
“In the Cotabato archdiocese, they held fireworks and musical [program] to greet the [pilgrim relics]. In the other dioceses in Mindanao, they held vigils, they queued up in long lines, they turned up in big numbers to pay homage and they buy commemorative items,” he told the BusinessMirror last Sunday at the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Bario Obrero here.
The relics visited the regional police headquarters in Camp Catitipan earlier, and it was set for transfer and overnight exposition at the Carmelite Convent here.
Torres said the pilgrimage of the relics, composed of a portion of the right bone leg of Saint Thérèse, has provided an important jolt to the expression of faith among Catholic faithful.
“It wakes up, it warms up the faith,” he added.
The Mindanao leg of the pilgrimage started after Easter Sunday on April 2, after the Philippine pilgrimage began on January 12, the date of birth of Saint Thérèse, in Laoag, onward down south of Luzon and the Visayas.
The pilgrimage would end on May 31, with a Mass and tribute at the Shrine of Saint Thérèse in Pasay City.
Among Catholic leaders, the remains of pious men and women and saints “have become the source of the belief of how God is showing His power on the faithful.”
Torres said there were voluminous accounts of how the relics of saints and pious faithful have turned miracles to those who have touched, seen or cast shadows on those who believed in their “intercession” to God.
Saint Thérèse had similar accounts of these spiritual miracles to boot. Born Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin on January 2, 1873, in Alencon, France, she entered the Carmelite monastery on April 9, 1888.
In one instance, on May 13, 1883, when she was very sick, she narrated later how the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to her smiling.
“She was healed shortly, and has named the Blessed Virgin as Our Lady of Smiles. And it is by coincidence that on May 13, the Philippines would be observing that day as Mothers’ Day,” Torres noted.
Saint Thérèse died on September 30, 1897, in Lisieux, France. Yet, during the World War I years of 1914-1918 “she was already a well-venerated saint that even Allied soldiers narrated their experience of being healed, or survived deaths, and those who eventually died were observed to have expired peacefully.
“After World War I, the Catholic faithful leave letters, requests, even war medals of soldiers on her grave in a public cemetery in France,” Torres recounted.
The Catholic Church later elevated her to the title of “Doctor of the Church, for her simplicity of life and deep impact of her thoughts and teachings,” Torres said.
On her deathbed, she told relatives and nuns that “when I die, I want to travel to the four corners of the world. I want to teach others to love God as I have loved Him, to become missionary of all time.”
“These were all fulfilled, now that her relic has traveled to several countries and for several years already,” he said.
The relic first visited the Philippines in 2000, then in 2008, when the rector of the Basilica of Saint Thérèse in France visited also the Philippines to install her shrine in Villamor in Pasay City. It was the rector himself who informed the Philippines that it could invite the pilgrimage of the relic every five years.
“Hence in 2013 and then this year,” Torres said.
Fortunately for the Philippine Catholic Church, her pilgrimage was timely again, Torres said, “because the Church has dedicated this year as the year of the Clergy and the Consecrated Persons.”
“One hundred thirty years ago, when she entered the Carmelite monastery, she said ‘I come to Carmel to save souls and to pray especially for the priests,’” Torres added.