2,000 Worshipers Fill Church to See St. Therese Relics

Seventy-five years ago, Catholic leaders in Los Angeles jumped the gun and named a fledgling Alhambra parish “St. Therese”--a full five months before the pope actually conferred sainthood upon her.

So no wonder crowds lined up early Sunday at the El Molino Street church for a chance to glimpse a portion of the remains of St. Therese of Lisieux as they passed through town on a worldwide pilgrimage.

More than 2,000 jammed St. Therese Church during a series of Masses. Two hundred worshipers who couldn’t get inside stood outside the sanctuary during the final service, which was conducted by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony.

Born in 1873 in Alencon, France, Therese Martin dreamed of being a missionary and traveling to all five continents. But she was a Carmelite nun for only nine years when she died of tuberculosis at age 24.

Her philosophy that what matters in life “is not great deeds, but great love” lived on, however, in a touching autobiography titled “Story of a Soul.”

In it, she wrote that there was a spirituality in doing the ordinary with extraordinary love. She likened herself to a flower “in God’s garden.”

Standing next to the ornate box made of jacaranda wood and gilded silver that contained the relics--some of her bones--Mahony urged worshipers to use her life as an example for theirs.

“St. Therese prayed to be a missionary, but she never left the monastery,” he said.

“It’s a good example for us. St. Therese taught us to take our situation and make it holy. We have the ability to touch so many people . . . to take reality and make it holy.”

Mahony joked that the Los Angeles bishop who designated the parish as “St. Therese” probably didn’t realize he wasn’t supposed to do it before the nun had been canonized.

St. Therese Church held its first Mass at Christmastime in 1924--becoming the world’s first church with that name.

The premature naming became moot on May 17, 1925, when Pope Pius XI authorized sainthood.

Since then, both the parish and its namesake have flourished. Today more than 1,400 families are part of St. Therese.

Catholic leaders say St. Therese, dubbed “The Little Flower” by church members, has influenced millions over the past seven decades.

Acclaimed the “greatest saint of modern times” by some, she was declared a doctor of the church in 1997 by Pope John Paul II. The designation, reserved for saints whose teachings are considered particularly outstanding, is the only one the pope has given. The box of relics was at his side when he did it.

The relics’ visit to the United State has been arranged by the Carmelite religious order as part of a five-year world tour. Preserved in their 300-pound box, the bones have traveled to Belgium, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Russia and Argentina, among other places. Future stops include the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mexico and Ireland.

“It was St. Therese’s dream to be able to proclaim the word of God throughout the world,” said Father Matthew Williams, the pastor of St. Therese Church, as he stood near the plexiglass-covered container of relics--and beneath a 10-foot marble statue of her that towers above the altar.

The relics came to the Los Angeles area on Dec. 26 and have been displayed at St. Jane Frances de Chantal Church in North Hollywood and at the Carmelite Monastery in Alhambra. They will be at Santa Teresita Hospital in Duarte until Tuesday afternoon, when they will be taken to Redlands and then to Palm Springs.

Crowds filling St. Therese Church after the relics arrived at the parish on New Year’s Eve have included a large group of Vietnamese Americans from Orange County, said Joe Jackson, a parish spokesman.

Many Vietnamese Catholics have a strong emotional tie to St. Therese because of her unfulfilled desire to have visited what was then French Indochina, said worshiper Kim Nguyen, who traveled from Westminster for Sunday’s service.

“She loved Vietnamese in her heart. That’s why she is in my heart,” Nguyen said.

Worshiper Therese Biggs of Newport Beach, who said both she and her mother were named after the saint, said her message remains valid today. “St. Therese teaches us to do the best you can, wherever you are,” Biggs said.

Watching as the relics left for Duarte--under an Alhambra police escort--was Joanne Hawkins, a member of St. Therese Church since 1938, when she was a child. She said she grew up learning about the saint while attending the parish school. Sunday’s service was the perfect way to start the new millennium, Hawkins said. “This is an excellent day,” she said.