Catholics bid farewell to saintly nun's bones

Britain's Catholic leader yesterday praised the "wonderful" outpouring of faith that greeted a tour of the relics of a 19th-century French nun, while admitting the devotion had "baffled" some people.

Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols gave a farewell Mass for the relics of St Therese of Lisieux, which return to France today after drawing more than 286,000 visitors during a month-long tour of England and Wales.

About 95,000 of these came to see the relics - portions of the saint's thigh and foot bones held in a heavy jacaranda wood casket - in Westminster Cathedral in London, where they have been on show for the past four days.

At a farewell homily at the cathedral, Archbishop Nichols said the month since the relics arrived had been a time of "wonderful expressions of faith and love in which we have been strengthened".

"For many, these days have been a time of conversion," he added.

"For some they have been a time of appreciating again the value of relics as an ancient expression of our faith in God's transforming presence in the midst of our human failure."

The archbishop added: "This outpouring of faith has baffled many people. Some secular commentators have not been able to make sense of it all. I have found their incomprehension intriguing.

"Other reports have simply described what was there to be seen - so many people finding encouragement, perseverance and hope through the example and prayers of this most remarkable of young women."

The nun, known in the Catholic world as the "Little Flower of Jesus", entered the sisterhood aged just 15, but died aged 24 in 1897 from tuberculosis.

The posthumous publication of her autobiography The Story Of A Soul elevated her to worldwide fame and she was declared a saint in 1925 by the Catholic Church.

She has been adopted as the patron saint by a number of groups including missionaries, AIDS sufferers, and the sick.