SILAY CITY – “Indi siya luyag maghalin sa aton (She doesn’t want to leave us)”, a nun quipped yesterday as a seven-hour delay extended the stay of the pilgrim relics of St. Therese of the Child Jesus in Negros.

The military plane that was supposed to airlift the relics to Malacañang, the next stop of the Philippine tour, got stuck with relief work in Samar.

But for the faithful of this city, the delay was providential – it gave them an opportunity to host the relics. What was planned as a pass-through the city’s centuries-old pro-Cathedral turned into a seven-hour vigil that allowed an estimated 3,000 more people to venerate the relics.

Some 30,000 devotees were estimated to have visited the Carmelite Monastery in the two days and three nights it stayed there.

Theresian devotees pointed out that the Catholic world’s most famous female saint had reasons to stay in Silay: a Sta. Teresita Academy is located here, and the parish priest, Fr. Abenir Pineda, had written the Hymn to St. Therese marching song in 1997.

The parish that had prepared to wave to her relic through the streets on the way to the airport instead spontaneously mounted a welcome rite for her inside the cathedral, complete with a shower of petals, the diocesan yellow and white flags and Pineda’s marching tune in the sound system.

From Bacolod, 10 big pots of arroz caldo, prepared under the Yahong ni Therese project, were dispatched to Silay to feed the pilgrims who had responded to text messages and radio announcements that the relics were still in this city.

After feeding 15,000 faithful who lined up to venerate the relics in Carmel,  “Yahong…” also sent arroz caldo to prisons, orphanages, seminarians and charitable institutions yesterday as a thanksgiving for the visit.

The relics of the saint, who was declared Doctor of the Church in 1997, arrived in Bacolod city Tuesday at 1 p.m.*

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