A Visit With St. Thérèse

My first veneration of relics

Dear readers,

On Friday, the 28th of November—the day after Thanksgiving here in the USA, I visited the relics of St Therese of Lisieux. Long-time readers will recall that St Therese hunted me down a few years ago, which I wrote about here. I won’t recapitulate everything I wrote there, you can read that for my initial impressions about a month after meeting her.

What I will say is that she left an impression on me and I resolved to keep her as a saintly friend. What ‘saintly friendship’ looks like from me is pretty similar to benign neglect—my habit of invoking the saints in general is few and far between, and especially new Saint-friends whom I have not yet worked into my spiritual life. But I did do one thing: For the year 2024, I took St. Therese as my saint-of-the-year, along with my theme-word, ‘detachment’.

By the end of the year, after largely forgetting about my commitment to St. Therese, I realized she had not forgotten about me. I asked for detachment, I got it: before the year was up I realized I would have to pack up my car and move back to Virginia (I was elsewhere when I read Story of a Soul). If you remember the process where I sold many books on ebay and advertised it on notes—I sold and threw out anything that would not or could not fit in my car, and I made the trek back to my ancestral home of the Old Dominion.

So St. Therese came into my life like a lion, and set about rearranging my life like a lamb.

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I forget the details of the moment when I heard that St. Therese was coming—but I knew I was immediately committed to making the pilgrimage. When October became November, I realized I would have to do some serious praying. I hesitate to discuss the details of my prayer life, but suffice it to say that I had some big intentions and that if I would be visiting St. Therese I needed to begin early and often. I would not let this be a frivolous visit, this was a pilgrimage. There needed to be preparation, so I began preparing¹.

When the day finally arrived, I left at about 4am to make the ~2 hour drive to the relics. I arrived an hour before doors open, because I am manic about time for reasons I cannot fathom. I arrived even before any volunteers. After about 20 minutes of confused wandering a volunteer finally showed up and showed me the right place to be—I was the first in line and the first to arrive.

There were banners talking about St. Therese’s life which I enjoyed reading. The volunteer let me get some coffee from the volunteers station. I read some moving descriptions of St. Therese’s parents, Sts Louis and Zelie Martin². I waited.

Two devotees of St. Therese arrived after me, and we had some time to talk. Both were praying for fallen away family members, one had some personal connection to one of the National Guard who was shot recently in Washington DC, which reminded me how close we all are, spiritually speaking. No man is an island, especially not in the family of Christ.

For my part, I brought with me a full legal pad page of intentions, my own and some of close friends. But most of all, my big intention I spent all month praying about.

At length we processed to the main building, snaked through a gift shop, up some stairs, around the pews, past some banners (I was first in line so couldn’t dilly dally to examine these banners, which I regret). I was now standing behind a small contingent of volunteers who were getting the first bite at veneration.

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I don’t know what to tell you as far as first impressions. It was like a nuclear bomb going off in my soul, everything was disordered and frantic, like I was scrambling to clean my house before guests arrived. I was emotional. I had my list of intentions in my pocket, a few items to touch to the relics.

I was shocked by how small the reliquary seemed. Such a larger-than-life saint in a box that seemed fit for a child, it was remarkable. I felt³ St Therese presiding over everything, she seemed to me to be getting quite a kick out of all this hubbub over God’s Little Flower and taking great joy in gathering up bouquet after bouquet of prayers and intentions to deliver to Our Father. When I got to venerate St. Therese, the tears flowed freely (very much against my wishes). I was a sniffling, blubbing fool and I didn’t know what to say: I finally had my moment with St. Therese and I was speechless. But I suppose she read my heart more than she needed to hear my words, and maybe that’s why I was emotional—to be seen so transparently is a terrifying and beautiful thing. To know my prayers echoed briefly in the halls of heaven is a terrifying and beautiful thing. I proceeded to the pews, I think I was in the second row, so I was still close enough to have a good view of St. Therese, and I finished my prayers⁴, and then began to look around.

There were many pictures of St Therese everywhere, and they all seemed to be staring at me. You know the difference between someone looking past you and looking at you? St Therese seemed to be looking at me, with recognition, with acknowledgement. I felt utterly transparent.

The moment evolved from one of personal fervor to one of detached enjoyment. St Therese’s attentions moved away from me and on to others, consolation doesn’t last forever and I was lucky to have experienced what I experienced. I got to enjoy secondhand the devotion of the other pilgrims who were venerating this wonderful Saint. I waited for Morning Prayer, then explored the gift shop, and returned again to wait for Mass. The crowd of pilgrims swelled, we were told there were 800 souls in the room as Mass was ending, and then I saw reports of 400 souls who were there several hours after I left. Easily thousands of people venerated St. Therese on the one day I was there.

I left not long after Mass. The rest of the day is less a tale about St. Therese and more a tale of my own personal life, so it’s not any more or less interesting than the afternoon any of you had on Friday the 28th.

But I can no longer get away with Benign Neglect of dear St. Therese. We’ve met, now, in person. And I know she’s heard my prayers, and will respond to them in her own way, as God wills. God is good, and God is good to give us His little flower to venerate in these waning days of Autumn with so few flowers left to brighten our days. This was a beautiful experience and one that I will not soon forget.

In Christ,

- Scoot

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St Therese of Lisieux, pray for us.

AJPM

1. I don’t want to make this sound like it was on my own initiative. During a routine long drive early in the month, I was praying about this and in the obscure way Saints do this, St. Therese asked me to pray a certain prayer. I can’t explain it except to say that I know St. Therese asked me for this and I answered with an eagerness to please.

2. I’m afraid that Louis and Zelie are now interfering in my life as well. To what end I cannot guess, but I wager by the end of 2026 I will see what work they have done. Pray for me—when Saints help they help their way, not my way.

3. I want to apologize every time I say this. I don’t know how to explain it, and I am prone to doubt myself—is this a genuine spiritual experience, or am I gaslighting myself? Given the context, I have decided to trust that this was a genuine spiritual experience, and make these statements declaratively. But I can’t resist footnoting about it.

4. I prayed for all of you, subscribers, followers, anyone who has ever liked and supported my work, and a few of you who mentioned intentions in the subscriber chat I mentioned by name (or at least username).