Now to say that the English secular press had a field day about this event is to put it mildly. The secular press were filled with diatribes against superstition and magic and whatever and pronounced the whole thing a failure before it even began. How could anybody believe that a “box of bones” of a long dead young woman could possibly have meaning in today’s world? It would have to be said that even the previous Roman Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Hume, shared some of these misgivings having refused a request for a tour of the relics in the year of the centenary of Therese’s death in 1897. Of course we Episcopalians and Anglicans know full well the English Reformation in the 16th century was all about the rejection of relics, and prayers to the saints and the selling of indulgences and the like. Indeed Article 22 of the famous 39 Articles of 1562, a major statement of English Reformation principles, states clearly, “The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration, as well as Images as of Reliques, and also invocation of Saints, is a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.”

Most of us I suspect have not thought a great deal about relics apart from admiring beautiful reliquaries which once contained them at the Cloisters or other museums of Medieval Art. So it was that this particular tour of St Therese of Lisieux’s relics was all the more remarkable. When they toured Ireland some years ago it was estimated that some 2 million people turned out to witness them. But the English are not the Irish being a more phlegmatic, rational people or so they think. I have to admit to having feet in both camps with an English mother and Irish grandparents on my Father’s side. But the recent tour of the relics confounded the organizers let alone the secular press because in contemporary very secular England over a quarter of million people turned out to see the relics and to participate in prayers vigils and ecumenical services in the their presence.

All sorts of people came, young and old, rich and poor, people of different racial background, Catholic, Anglican and Protestant. Well may we ask what on earth was going on here? Was the clock being turned back to Medieval times when such events were common, a mainstay of church life? Was this just religious credulity of the worst sort, or an outburst of superstition or simply a matter of opportunism (better check this out just in case). Well it may have had elements of all three but that does not match the descriptions of these events that I have read. The Anglican Dean of York talked of the profound silence surrounding the relics as thousands passed by them or sat in their presence in prayer and contemplation. Others spoke of the sheer variety of people who turned out to view that relics and take part in the prayer vigils who seemed to gain some inspiration for having been in their presence.

What is it about Therese that is so important? After all she entered the convent when she was 15 and died when she was 24 from tuberculosis having never left her native France and left behind one small book and a bunch of letters. She died unknown outside the convent. However today her little book , Story of a Soul, is regarded as a religious classic and in Lisieux where her convent was situated there is a special basilica in her memory which hold 2500 people. I would have to confess that I have never been a great fan of Therese not because of any study of her that I had undertaken but rather that what I had read about her was somewhat off putting. Therese has attracted a sort of piety and sentimental religiosity over the years which had little to do with the real Therese.

The reality is that Therese was the product of a hard and sad life, with her mother dying early and being brought up with her four sisters by a difficult and strict father. Entering the Carmelite convent brought little respite from that tough life. The Convent was affected by the rigorist spirituality of the Jansenists (sort of Catholic Puritans) which was dominated by fear of a vengeful God. Therese who embodied a very different spirituality (one based on the Love of God) was given a hard time. It was in her writing that she was able to express her true beliefs and it is those that resonate with so many in the 21st Century.

Therese’s conviction was that God wanted her to be perfect “as the humble wild flowers on the forest floor” are perfect. Her way to perfection was to be through the “science of love”. To talk of God as love is second nature to us. But in Therese’s day this was very rare. She spoke of God and of his Christ as her friends and companions. She saw Jesus as the Face of God’s Love. Every act of love, however small, was a step towards God’s irresistible love. Everything one does, she wrote, however trivial in the eyes of the world, should be done as well as one can, because that is pleasing to God. If all we do is to smile then that was God’s will too. Therese made a practice of being nice to those whom she disliked especially in the convent; her heart was overflowing with love. There was about her a radiant sanctity, an accessible and attainable sanctity, which speaks down the years to us who strive to live the Christian life in what seems sometimes an alien world. That is what I suspect made the tour of her relics so popular. Just to be reminded of someone like us who in a very modest way glimpsed something of God’s love and put it into practice in her own life.

I have come to the view over the years through experience and through observation that there is such a thing as the holiness of people, of things and of places, that radiates on a level beyond the rational and the visible but is nonetheless real. I hope we can say we have met people in our lives who have made us better people, who by their example, their lives, and their words have reminded us of the things of God; or have visited places where we could almost feel the presence of God’s spirit; places sanctified by prayer or by a remarkable life.