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The relics of St Therese Summary: The relics of St Therese of Lisieux are currently touring Australia. Thousands have gathered to see them - but what exactly are they coming to see, and why? Details or Transcript: Stephen Crittenden: Welcome to the program. [...] But first: in medieval times, as Geoffrey Chaucer tells us in the opening lines of The Canterbury Tales, when the weather cleared up and spring was in the air, anyone who could afford it went off on pilgrimage. They went to St James at Compostela in northern Spain, or to Canterbury, or – dodging Israeli tanks and Palestinian suicide bombers – to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. But these days, pilgrimages seem to be happening in reverse; they come to you, care of Qantas and White Lady Funerals. Over the past several weeks, some of the mortal remains of St Therese of Lisieux have been travelling around Australia and drawing huge crowds, just as they did last year in Ireland, where it’s estimated that just about the entire population turned out to see the relics. There’s no doubt that St Therese is one of the most popular of all Catholic saints, and I have to admit to you that I don’t really understand why. St Therese of Lisieux lived as a Carmelite nun in France at the end of the 19th century. She died in 1897 at the age of 24. She was canonised just 28 years after her death, really due to public demand: an icon of self-effacement, humility, obedience – and ordinariness. Well last Sunday in St Mary’s Cathedral Square in Sydney, an estimated 20,000 people gathered to pay their respects. And oddly enough, it was the Catholic hierarchy itself which seemed most uncomfortable with the idea of venerating relics. And here at the ABC we’ve also been approached by lots of people who say they’d like the veneration of relics explained. In fact it’s easy to see that the power of relics is all around us. Think of the thousands of people in Westminster who filed past the draped coffin of the Queen Mother this week, or the people that queued at 3 in the morning at the recent exhibition at the National Library in Canberra to see artefacts like the original manuscript of Mozart’s ‘Requiem’. Think too, of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Canberra. Paul Keating: We might think that this unknown soldier died in vain, but in honouring our war dead, as we always have, we declare that this is not true. For out of the war came a lesson which transcended the horror and tragedy, and the inexcusable folly. It was a lesson about ordinary people, and the lesson was that they were not ordinary. On all sides they were the heroes of that war, not the Generals, and the politicians, but the soldiers and sailors and nurses, those who taught us to endure hardship, show courage, to be bold as well as resilient, to believe in ourselves, to stick together. The Unknown Australian Soldier we inter today was one of those who, by his deeds, proved that real nobility and grandeur belongs not to empires and to nations, but to the people on whom they, in the last resort, always depend. Stephen Crittenden: Paul Keating, at the entombment of the Unknown Soldier in Canberra back in 1992. So now you do get it. And that insight, about ordinary people not being ordinary, is surprisingly close to the spirituality of St Therese, and may go some way toward explaining her appeal. Father Greg Homeming is a friar in the Order of Discalced Carmelites in Australia, and he’s been accompanying St Therese’s relics on their pilgrimage around Australia. He spoke with David Rutledge. Greg Homeming: You’ll find quite a beautiful casket, which is made of Brazilian jacaranda wood, which the people of Brazil donated to the Order back in the 1920s. You won’t see in fact anything which is identifiable with Therese, because within the casket are part of the mortal remains of Therese. I think some bones are in there. And around the casket there’s a glass or perspex covering to stop people touching it or trying to break it. David Rutledge: My understanding of the cult of relics was that traditionally it has been part of a religion of touch, there’s something about the presence of the person and the fact that you can lay your hands on it – but not in this case? Greg Homeming: Yes, there’s still something tangible. Archbishop Hickey from the West compared it to the woman touching the hem of Jesus’ garment and thereby being cured; she didn’t touch him, but the hem. Tangibility’s a very important part within the Catholic Church, because the Catholic Church has always had a notion that for a person really to be engaged by God, all the senses have to come into play. It’s a very completely human kind of religion in its full sense of the word. David Rutledge: The whole notion of transporting the body parts of a dead saint around the country would I think, strike a lot of people as quite bizarre, I’m sure you’ve encountered this. How would you explain it; why do we venerate not just the memory of St Therese, but the body of St Therese in this way? Greg Homeming: To properly understand it you need to consider a number of things. Sacred sites I believe are significant in every culture, it’s not peculiar to the indigenous people of Australia, and sites are sacred because a people have here, in this place, met what I would call God. And once there’s been a meeting, that place becomes significant. Within the Catholic Church we have many sacred sites: Assisi, for example, Lisieux, Jerusalem of course, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. If the significance of the sacred site lies with a person meeting God, then it’s very easy to take the next step, that the person is more significant than a sacred site. Now, we can also say that things associated with that person are important, and within our Catholic tradition then, what we have which has an association with a saint, becomes a focal point – and with these significant saints, even more importantly, their remains. Not out of a magical superstitious reason, but from what I’ve observed happening in Australia; when this reliquary comes to a church, people flock together, the faithful come together. Those who know about her and those who don’t. And they are moved by the presence of the person, and in that movement are touched by Christ, so to come to love God the way Therese did. David Rutledge: Everybody talks about Australia as a secular society, but I wonder if, when we look around, we can see perhaps evidence of a similar kind of thing to what you were talking about. I’m thinking of the way that people want to reach out and touch footballers as they run on and off the field, and people wanted to touch Ian Thorpe’s swimming medals. Do you think this sort of thing is related to the idea of saints and relics? Greg Homeming: I think that the need to have something tangible in our lives is simply human. It’s even more primitive than something religious. By primitive I mean earlier, in terms of thinking. What I would say about Australia certainly it is a secular society and in many ways I think people are losing sight of proper values and things to focus on. But if we find something to focus our life on, it has to be worthy of my focus. David Rutledge: Well let’s talk about that particular focus; let’s talk about St Therese herself. Saints aren’t just good people who’ve been canonised for their goodness, are they? They’re a bit like athletes who win medals for particular virtues or particular exemplary qualities. So what were St Therese’s particular qualities? Greg Homeming: The greatest attribute of any saint is their weakness, because if this is not the case I have no relationship with them. People who truly want to follow must know their own weaknesses to follow God. And that would be one of Therese’s greatest strengths. She was a woman who knew in herself profoundly her weaknesses, and every time she tried to live the Christian life she came up against her own weaknesses and failings. David Rutledge: As a child she was somewhat obstinate and wilful, and then during her early years as a Carmelite nun, she had quite a hard time knuckling down to convent discipline. But of course she eventually did knuckle down, and she would write in her autobiography that’ Jesus knew very well that his little flower needed the life-giving water of humiliation’. To modern sensibilities the life-giving water of humiliation doesn’t really sound very palatable. I want to ask you how do you take this ethic of self-mortification and tailor it to suit a contemporary context where everybody’s interested in self-actualisation? Greg Homeming: Certainly there’s a place for self-mortification, but we need to understand what she means by humiliation, and for this, the word ‘humility’ is significant. The word ‘humility’ is not walking around and saying that I’m stupid, I’m ridiculous, I’m the worst in the world, for many people think it means. Humiliating is not a good word, humility is the better word, and that is according as I live to start to see more and more profoundly who I am, and properly understood, it’s not something to be ashamed of then. Because Therese in fact was proud of her weaknesses, because she knew in her weaknesses the love of God. David Rutledge: Well why is she here at this time? Saints are deployed for specific reasons. We find St Joan of Arc gets dragged out at times of national crisis in France because she represents strength and patriotic devotion. So why is St Therese being deployed in Australia at this time? Greg Homeming: I like your word ‘deployed’. Deployed indeed. In 1997 our present Holy Father John Paul II declared her the 33rd doctor of the Catholic Church. The declaration of someone as a doctor is always significant, because through the declaration of a doctorate the church is in fact saying to the faithful, ‘We want you to learn something from this saint’. And he announced it to the young people, he ‘deployed’ her to them, if you want to use your word. Because he said to them, ‘Learn from her, how to be honest and truthful in the presence of God and learn from her how to follow Christ. And I’m sure he also thought because if you do this, I can rest in peace, because you will carry the church into the new millennium’. David Rutledge: That’s an interesting message to give to the young. We’ve seen certain indications recently that the church in Australia certainly, is perhaps adopting a back-to-basics policy. Archbishop George Pell recently called for a return to traditional devotion and prayer-based worship, and he said that a religious practice grounded in social justice and welfare work, can ‘poison the wells of faith’, that was the phrase that he used. And I wonder if St Therese might not be a model of that old-style authoritarian Catholicism and as such she’s maybe a strange example to be giving to the young. Greg Homeming: No she’s not. As a religious, she in fact stands outside the authority structures of the church. In her time in France, she was presenting a spirituality which was contrary to the prevailing spirituality of the church in France. She made it quite revolutionary. David Rutledge: Contrary in what way? Greg Homeming: At the time in France, people did penances and all sorts of modifications and practices so as to atone for the sinfulness of people. Therese could never understand that, because she said God doesn’t want this, God only wants love, because God is love. But your question about the return to traditional devotions: I’m certainly of the opinion that the Church needs devotions, the Catholic Church has always stood for tangibility. Tangibility goes with devotions. The Church is so big that it has its intellectual part, it has its devotional part, there’s a place in the Church for almost every spectrum. And this devotional sense, this return to basics I think is very important. David Rutledge: But what about the other thing that Archbishop Pell was talking about, which was the contemporary – or not just contemporary – social-justice-style Catholicism, where political commitment and individual conscience are what directs a person’s faith. Do you see any tension between what St Therese stands for and this kind of Catholicism? Greg Homeming: No, because there’s not been a time when the Church has not in some way been involved in politics. There were times when we would wish they hadn’t been, but because the Church has always had such a significant place in the lives of the faithful, what the Church says has political impact. Therefore it will always speak in many areas: in social justice, in bioethics and so many things, and rightfully it does. But what member of the Church can have the full balance of what it is to be a Catholic? I belong to the contemplative strand, and people say, ‘Why aren’t you out there helping the poor on the street?’ I’m not going to apologise that I don’t, because I’m only one part of the body of Christ, and I don’t represent the whole lot. I don’t apologise for what I don’t do. I would agree with the Archbishop that every member of the Church needs to pray, because if you don’t know Jesus Christ, what do you know? Stephen Crittenden: The very Carmelite spirituality of Father Greg Homeming, speaking there with David Rutledge. And if you want to catch up with St Therese of Lisieux in the final days of her pilgrimage around Australia, we’re providing a weblink to the tour itinerary. Guests on this program: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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