CATHOLIC school students laid a path of rose petals to welcome the relics of St Therese de Lisieux when they arrived in Adelaide on February 13.
St Therese is known as ‘the Little Flower’ and rose petals have become a theme of the relics’ global tour.
The saint’s relics were a major focus for Ash Wednesday devotions in Adelaide’s St Francis Xavier Cathedral.
Earlier, 1500 students and teachers from Catholic schools gathered along the route.
Rose petals were strewn before and over the vehicle carrying St Therese’s relics as it neared the cathedral. The petals came from a special garden project by Mt Carmel College, Rosewater. The students grow and sell the roses commercially and they distributed the petals to others along the route.
Thousands of worshippers venerated the relics throughout the day and night in the cathedral.
There was a similar response in Port Pirie diocese, where the relics stopped briefly outside St Mark’s Cathedral on February 15 before going on to St Teresa’s parish at Whyalla.
Pictures courtesy Southern Cross, Adelaide They went on to Renmark, where parish priest Fr Paul Quirk said people had travelled long distances to venerate them.
People came from as far as Broken Hill, Mildura and Bendigo in central Victoria.
More than 1000 people attended Masses and prayer vigils and Fr Quirk said the church was full at all times.
The relics were taken from Renmark on February 18 to Griffith in Wagga Wagga diocese.
They remained there until February 20 but will return to the diocese in March.
