Normally the relics of St. Therese are kept in the Carmelite Monastery at Lisieux, where Therese lived a simple and obscure life as a cloistered Carmelite Nun until she died in 1897 at the age of 24.

Therese's message for every age is to celebrate Christ, as she witnesses to the world to come. Though belonging to a different language and culture, her message is pure Gospel truth, and transcends time and space. For those of us who have already "met" her through the pages of her own life story (The Story of a Soul), Therese emerges as a real person of flesh and blood, every inch a woman, whose insights, explanations and grasp of the Scriptures leave one marvelling. The arrival of her Relics will be an event for all - a rallying point to help us further along the road of becoming a people united in our faith in Jesus.

St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus was born in Alencon in France on 2 January 1873. She was the last of nine children, four of whom had already died. Her father was a watchmaker and her mother ran a small lace-making business. When Thérèse was four, her mother died and the family moved to Lisieux. Here she spent the next ten years of her life, brought up in an atmosphere of love and affection.

From an early age she wanted to give herself to God. She struggled with her own stubbornness of will and suffered a lot from her very sensitive and scrupulous nature. When she was ten years old, she was cured of a serious illness through the 'smile of the Queen of Heaven'.

At the age of fifteen, she entered the Carmelite convent in Lisieux and was given the name 'Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face'. She spent the next nine years of her life here, faithfully and heroically living the life of a Carmelite nun with great simplicity and humility. She discovered what she called her 'Little Way' - a way of confidence and trust and of total surrender to God's Merciful Love. At the end of her life she realised her mission was about to begin, and she would spend her heaven doing good on earth.

Before she died, Thérèse, under obedience, began to write down the recollections and memories of her childhood together with her reflections on the religious life. St. Thérèse died on 30 September 1897 at the age of 24 after eighteen months of great physical suffering and desolation of spirit. She was canonised in 1925. She has been proclaimed a Patroness of France and of the Missions and in 1997 was declared a Doctor of the Church.

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