Little Flower relics to visit Wormwood Scrubs prison
By Simon Caldwell

19 June 2009

The relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux are to be taken into a high-security London jail as part of a visit to England and Wales this year.

A casket containing some of the bones of the "Little Flower" will spend October 12 in Wormwood Scrubs.

The prison is home to nearly 1,300 adult male prisoners, about 300 of whom are Catholic. All are classed as category B on a scale of A to D, meaning it is necessary for prison authorities to make escape "extremely difficult".

Mgr Keith Baltrop, the tour organiser, said the idea was to give prisoners a chance to pray for the intercession of St Thérèse, a French Carmelite nun who was described by Pope Pius X as the "greatest saint of modern times".

He said it was important to take the relics to "places not just where the faithful gather but where she is most needed".

He said: "We are taking her to the big Church of England chapel and the relics are going there for approximately three and a half hours. They will be left there and it will be left for the prison authorities to enable as many people as possible to come and venerate them."

He added: "God has made her a particular figure for our modern age. She was extremely humble but she had this sense that she was going to be a great saint. God had chosen her to be a powerful channel of grace.

"Many people have experienced healing or a sense of putting things right after praying before the relics.

"She was 100 per cent dedicated to God and she didn't hold back in any way. She stressed very much the love of God. The whole of Catholic truth makes sense if shown in the light of love. She very much witnesses to that in her life and teaching."

St Thérèse's relics have toured more than 40 countries but this is the first time they will have visited England and Wales. When they were taken to Ireland in 2001 more people went to see them than turned out to see Pope John Paul II in 1979. On that occasion they were taken to Mountjoy Prison in Dublin were practically all the 700 inmates took the opportunity to venerate them.

St Thérèse recounted in her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, that she prayed for the conversion of Henri Pranzini, a triple murderer, and also asked God for a sign that he had repented.

She read in La Croix newspaper the next day that Pranzini continued to refuse the chance to confess but moments before he was guillotined he snatched a crucifix from a priest and kissed the five wounds of Christ three times. "I had been given my sign, and it was typical of the graces Jesus has given me to make me eager to pray for sinners," she wrote.

St Thérèse, who died in 1897 from tuberculosis at the age of 24, also said that she intended to spend her time in heaven "doing good on earth".

She is famous for her theology of the "little way" - carrying out even the smallest and most mundane daily tasks or deeds with love. She was made one of just three women doctors of the Church by Pope John Paul II in 1997.

She is considered such a powerful intercessor that in 1927, as the Soviet Union fell into the grip of Stalinist Communism, she was named by Pope Pius XI as the patron saint of all works for Russia, as well as a co-patron saint of France and co-patron of the missions. Her relics were flown to Baghdad in December 2002 in the hope that her intercession would prevent the Iraq war.

Helen Daly, the chaplain coordinator at Wormwood Scrubs, said it had not yet been decided precisely how prisoners would be given access to the relics.

However, the chapel of the Victorian jail - the gatehouse of which famously appears as HMP Slade in the opening sequence of the 1970s television sitcom Porridge - is the largest and finest prison chapel in England.

The visit of the saint's relics was confirmed just months after inspectors reported that conditions in the jail had deteriorated and that gang activity had heightened. One in five inmates had also failed drugs tests.

Although the jail houses some dangerous criminals, its former inmates have included famous prisoners such as Keith Richards, George Blake, John Stonehouse, Nicholas van Hoogstraten, Mark Morrison, Sir Alfred Douglas and most recently Pete Doherty, the former boyfriend of supermodel Kate Moss.

The relics will tour England and Wales from September 16 to October 16 and will be taken to cathedrals, churches, universities and also to the St John and St Elizabeth Hospital in North London. They will remain in England for her feast day on October 1.