The Little Flower

Saint Therese, aka the little flower, patron saint of AIDS, florists and aviators, originally from Liseaux, the Calvados producing region of Normandy, is in town today. Her remains are on tour and she will be stopping off at the hospice here. Apparently, she tours fairly regularly and often visits Dublin. In the past few years she has visited such far flung places as New Zealand, Portugal and West Africa. As a Carmelite nun she fulfilled her spiritual duties by praying constantly for priests. She was accepted into the order at the early age of fifteen and remained there until her untimely death at twenty four from TB. She was canonized in 1925, a mere 28 years later by pope Pius XI. The first of only three women to acheve such status, she is best known for her short memoirs, poetry and plays. I asked Linda, the staff nurse here about her visit and she said, "She'll be in around lunch. They've taken out all the chairs so I suppose they'll just pray on the floor." Everybody here refers to her quite naturally in the present tense. There is no charge to see her little reliquary.