1,000 faithful venerate relics of St. Therese at the cathedral

St. ThÀerÁese promised 100 years ago, as she lay dying, to shower the earth with rose petals from heaven.

The beloved "little flower" of the Roman Catholic faith kept her promise yesterday at St. James Cathedral in Seattle.

For a few hours, as some 10,000 people filed by a wooden box containing her bones, the sweet smell of roses overpowered the smoky incense that usually marks Catholic worship.

The faithful were there to venerate the remains of a favorite Catholic saint, ThÀerÁese of Lisieux, here as part of a world tour. They tossed roses in the path of an honor guard bearing the wood-and-gilt reliquary to the altar, blanketing one corner of the platform with flowers.

"Great blessings will come from today," said Cindy Choo of Tacoma, who clutched 12 red roses she'd bought at Safeway on her way to the cathedral on Seattle's First Hill. "ThÀerÁese sends flowers to people as a sign everything will be OK with them. So I'm giving these away to people here to remind them of God's special blessings."

Choo was one of about 5,000 people lucky enough to be able to crowd into the sanctuary for Mass. Another 5,000 waited outside in the cold for more than three hours until the service was over and they were allowed to file quickly by the reliquary before it was taken to St. Theresa Church in Federal Way for evening services.

The visit has included stops in 24 states since October - the relics were to be seen at five churches in Washington state and may be viewed today at St. Joseph's Carmelite Monastery, at 2215 N.E. 147th St. in Shoreline.

St. ThÀerÁese was born in France in 1873 and entered the cloistered Carmelite monastery at Lisieux at age 15, taking the name Sister ThÀerÁese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. She died at 24 of tuberculosis, believing to the end that her desire to spread the gospel to every continent would be granted.

Catholics began clamoring for the church to canonize her almost immediately after her death, and she was declared a saint 28 years later. People were attracted by her unwavering faith and simple philosophy: live to life's fullness and act with love.

Many of those who went to St. James to venerate ThÀerÁese and touch the plexiglas surrounding the ornate reliquary told of her influence on them.

"She's a powerful little saint," said Theresa Myers of Chehalis, who brought a crystal rosary to touch to the reliquary as a tangible keepsake from the saint for whom she was named. "She has been a patron saint of my family since my grandmother, who prayed to her when she was a little girl."

St. ThÀerÁese provided hope during a sad moment in his life, Seattle Archbishop Alex Brunett said in his homily. When his mother had a child who was stillborn, the infant was buried in the back yard of the family home. The mourning family planted a rosebush over his grave and called it the rose of St. ThÀerÁese. It was what his mother wanted, Brunett said, "because she believed that in great simplicity can be found great strength."

"I don't think this is really about bones and relics and such," said Marie Therese Sokol, mother superior of St. Joseph's Carmelite Monestary. "It's really about hoping to know God. When people are close to her, they feel close to God. She was nobody, a child who died at 24 but God used this nobody to show how he works with us if we just have faith."

Those waiting outside to pay their respects tried to ignore several men who picketed across the street. Jeremiah James Baldwin, who said his group was a "street ministry," implored those in line to "worship Jesus, not some saint."

"It's the usual thing; they don't understand what we're doing," said Trenton Klaus of Seattle. "They think we're trying to worship a bunch of bones, but veneration is not giving honor to a person over God. It's just raising up a person who was Christlike."

Brunett also spoke in his homily of "some thoughts we need to take home."

"It's not simply a matter of saying we brought relics in and this is some sort of black magic or voodoo or a kind of a ritual that we have to do because we emotionally have to express ourselves. But it is a very profound sign of faith, a very profound sign of what we are called to be."

Brunett urged people "to embrace life and embrace the mystery of life" as it was lived by St. ThÀerÁese, reaching faithfully for "the capacity that God has given us."

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Shoreline stop today

The reliquary bearing the bones of St. ThÀerÁese will be at St. Joseph's Carmelite Monastery, 2215 N.E. 147th St., Shoreline, today.

The doors open at 9:30 a.m., and veneration will follow a 10 a.m. service. The monastery will be closed at 3:45 p.m. to prepare for an invitation-only Mass at 5 p.m. The public is invited to see the reliquary again from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. before it is taken away.

The next stops will be Hawaii and the Philippines.