Relics of St Therese of Lisieux arrive at Westminster Cathedral

Amid clouds of incense and flanked by priests carrying lanterns, the much-travelled mortal remains of an obscure French Carmelite nun were carried into Westminster Cathedral, watched by a crowd of almost 1,000 pilgrims, alternately praying and cheering.

by Elizabeth Grice

What looked like an ornate miniature church under a bullet-proof glass dome arrived in a dark grey C8 Citroen people-carrier, known in the funeral business as a “hearsette”. As religious relics go, it is huge and the eight bearers, dressed in white, swayed under its weight as they transported it down the nave to a fanfare and organ voluntary. In the precinct outside, where the service was projected onto a giant screen, the crowd joined in an exhaustive Litany to the saint.

Earlier in the day, the bones of St Therese of Lisieux, who died of tuberculosis in 1897 at the age of 24, had rested for a few hours at Wormwood Scrubs Prison, west London, for the contemplation of inmates. Now, after a month-long progress round England and Wales that has attracted 150,000 people, it is the turn of Westminster Cathedral, the Byzantine-style headquarters of Roman Catholicism in Britain, to host the portions of thigh and foot bone for public veneration... Read the whole article.