< The Latest 2025-10-18T20:28:19+0000
The Pasadena Star-News | Sat 10/18 01:28pm PST | Anissa Rivera
“Credo” is Latin for “I believe” and gosh, Catholics sure do believe in many things.
We believe in the example and power of saints, for example, those haloed creatures, surrounded by angels, or forever painted in their martyrdom, eyes to heaven, hands clasped in prayer. But that’s just the first tierdom of sainthood, as it were.
Last week, thousands trekked to Alhambra and Duarte to be in the presence of the relics of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, on the 100th anniversary of her canonization. Guided by the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles, the pilgrims came from as far away as Santa Clarita and as close as Monrovia.
The relics, a significant portion of her bones contained in an ornate reliquary made of precious metals weighs close to 300 pounds, hefty cargo to fly from the saint’s hometown of Lisieux, France.
When her relics last visited the United States in 2000, more than one million people showed up at 130 stops in 25 states, including at the Sacred Heart Retreat House in Alhambra.
I signed up to volunteer and was quickly and gently conscripted by Sister Rosa Guadalupe, who sent emails, instructions and maps with charm and efficiency. I was assigned to direct pilgrims to St. Joseph Chapel on the grounds of Santa Teresita Hospital in Duarte.
It was a long enough walk for me to intone, “You are on the right path,” with no irony, and to chat.
Grace Jardeleza of Sylmar said she asked the saint to send her a white rose if her vocation was to be a nurse. She did receive a white rose five days later.
“From then on, anytime I get a chance to be close to her, I take it,” the nurse of more than 30 years said. “This is the second time I’ve come here, and I saw her at Lisieux too, with my daughters. I have a very good relationship with her.”
There were young families, older couples, young couples, moms with kids, all with a St. Therese story to tell. How God works. How the French Carmelite nun, who died of tuberculosis at age 24 in 1897, teaches them about being themselves and doing little things with great love.
“I came and I prayed,” one elderly woman said contentedly.
Sister Gianna, who lives at Sacred Heart Retreat House in Alhambra and is 16 years a nun, said her biggest hope for pilgrims is that they “receive the Father’s love like St. Therese did.”
“She was unabashedly this young child like in her spiritual life, that’s how she related to God the Father, as a little child,” she said. “A child who trusts completely and receives the father’s love and knows that everything that is good in him he wants for us. So that’s what we hope is that people’s hearts open to the reality of how much the father loves them and cherishes them like a father does his child.”
Responding to that love, of course, is faith, Sister Gianna said.
She said even non-believers came away from venerating the relics with a renewed sense of faith and peace and joy.
Touching objects to a relic (which are classified into three types, the first-class ones being body parts of saints such as this one), was a big part of the visit for many people too.
Sister Gianna said the idea that objects touched to the relics then take on a divine power can be misunderstood. But it’s rooted in the idea of the gospel that Jesus is the word, God, incarnate.
That God can take on a human body and sanctify that form gives us lesser beings something to aspire to. Saints simply have met that goal.
“It’s all about grace really,” Sister Gianna said. “How we become like Jesus. When we have objects that we touch to the reliquary of Saint Therese, it’s grace that we’re begging for. It’s an act of faith in the hope of our whole lives, which is to be united with Jesus in heaven.”
The Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles number about 115, and also serve in Miami and Denver.
Sister Gianna said what she loves about St. Therese is that “she truly rejoiced in feeling small.”
The nuns even wrote a song and created art based on the imagery Therese spoke about in her famous autobiography, “Story of a Soul.”
“She would say the great saints are the eagles, and I’m just a weak little bird, but I have an eagle’s heart and I can still fly towards the sun and the father can come and pick me up even if I can’t soar like the eagles,” Sister Gianna said. “I can still aspire to great things by embracing my littleness and weakness. That always amazes me.”
My own Therese story began after I re-read her autobiography, and felt her so real, so relatable. Cheeky Baby carries her name (not pronounced in the French way of “Teerez”) and of course, we stay familiar with her writings and black and white photos and any meditations offered by her Carmelite sisters.
I grabbed a medal from Cheeky and rosaries to touch to the relic. The crowds had thinned out enough I was able to go twice (hey, touching the sacred twice has to make it stick, yes?) A couple who brought their baby joked that yes, they did have her touch the reliquary, and yes, maybe they won’t wash that hand for a bit.
No one left unhappy.
I walk out full of hope I’m sure I can spare some for the parking guy and the lady at the bus stop, and even the husband. Many things can be a grace and a gift. Even people. Especially people.
The relics travel to Redlands next, before moving on to Texas. For more information, visit stthereseusa2025.com.