Determined not to miss her chance this time, Sophia Amado, parishioner of San Secondo d`Asti in Guasti, made her way to El Carmelo Retreat House in Redlands for what she called a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”
“One of my friends told me that [her relic] comes only every 25 years, and I’m already 60, so I’m like, ‘God only knows if I’d be able to make it for my 85th,” Amado laughed. “So, I said, we have to go, it’s necessary to go. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for me since I missed it 25 years ago.”
For the first time in 25 years, the Relics of St. Therese, “The Little Flower,” toured the United States, includng an all-day stop at El Carmelo Retreat Center in Redlands on Oct. 17 for public veneration. The relic tour of St. Therese in the U.S. began on Oct. 1 and continues through Dec. 8, commemorating the 100th anniversary of her canonization and the 2025 Jubilee Year.
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, also known as “The Little Flower,” was born on January 2, 1873, in Alençon, France, as Marie-Françoise Thérèse Martin. At the age of four, Thérèse experienced a profound loss when her mother passed away after a long illness. At just 15, Thérèse made the decision to join the Carmelite Order in Lisieux. Despite her young age, she convinced her father and the Church authorities to allow her to enter the convent. She took the name “Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.” St. Therese’s spirituality was unique in its emphasis on small, everyday acts of love, which she called the “Little Way.”
Police and visitors’ cars lined the street beneath the retreat house as the relics of St. Therese arrived, showing the many local Catholics who wished to witness this historic moment and venerate the relic of “The Little Flower.”
Members of the Knights of Columbus Council 3109 served as the reliquary bearers who carried the relics inside the beautifully red rose-adorned chapel and then assisted with honor guarding throughout the day. Several long lines formed filled with people eager to venerate the relics with their personal belongings.
“It was beautiful, very serene, very spiritual,” said Gerry Lopez, parishioner of Sacred Heart Church in Rancho Cucamonga. “I poured out my heart to St. Therese, I have a great love for her, her spirituality, her simplicity, her childlike love for God really draws me. I felt her presence here today. I enjoyed it very much.”
Amado was also deeply moved while inside the chapel to venerate the relics.
“I had a chance to venerate, it was beautiful, the reliquary is absolutely gorgeous, it’s so nice and peaceful and serene and you feel the holiness coming from it,” Amado said. “My mother is a Teresa, so it holds a lot of meaning to me to have St. Therese here and I’m just grateful that I had the opportunity while I’m still alive to be able to come and see her and give my petitions to her [and ask] that she carry them. I’m going to start to say my Novena to her as well.”