A few months before she died in 1897, St. Therese of the Child Jesus prophetically declared: “I feel that my mission is about to begin, my mission to make God loved as I love Him, to teach souls my little way…”

Asked what this ‘little way’ was, she had answered: “It is the way of spiritual childhood; the way of trust and absolute surrender.”

For over a century, St. Therese has been doing that mission, carried out by her constantly growing legion of devotees – which count popes as well as peasants -- who have mounted activities and campaigns propagating her doctrine.

One such activity is the world pilgrimage of her relics, which arrive in Bacolod today, as part of a Philippine tour that started in January. While the focus of this activity will be around the ornate reliquary made of jacaranda wood designed like a miniature cathedral where the remains of the saint are stored, organizers hope it will spark something deeper: a renewal of Gospel life among people.

Looking back at the way her mission has played out since her death, believers can only see the hand of God in it. For example, when she died, she was the first victim of the anti-religion temperament in France at that time: authorities ordered a ban on burials inside monasteries, and so she was buried in the public municipal cemetery.

This had proven providential in fact, because this allowed people – records put the figures in the hundreds of thousands – to visit her graveyard. Here, 10 volumes of miracles and intercessions were recorded – a fact that had fast tracked the cause of her sainthood. This couldn’t have happened if she had been buried inside the monastery.

To the faithful, it is not impossible for a miracle of happen in the presence of her relics – perhaps a whiff of rose-scented perfume, or maybe a spectacle, like the healing of a paralyzed man that was reported in Spain when she was declared a doctor.

Beyond the physical miracles, however, organizers hope the visit sparks a renewed movement of the everyday spirituality that she had written about.

As Bishop Patrick Ahern of New York, put it: “The way of Therese holds the answer to the great question of life: How can I, in the banal everydayness of my seemingly ordinary life learn to love God as He wants me to love Him?”* To be concluded

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