Saint Therese of Lisieux: A Gateway

The Consecration of the Basilica

of St. Therese at Lisieux, July 11, 1954

I reproduce below this article:  "Basilica Of St. Teresa Consecrated At Lisieux" (1954, July 22). from theAdvocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), p. 5. Retrieved July 12, 2020, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article172539826

The Basilica of St. Therese at Lisieux. Photo Credit: Peter and Liane Klostermann, who made a pilgrimage to Lisieux especially to take many photographs for this Web site. I am deeply grateful to them both.

Basilica Of St. Teresa Consecrated At Lisieux

100,000 Pilgrims At Five-Day Celebrations

Five Cardinals, 59 Archbishops and Bishops and more than 100,000 pilgrims attended the five-day celebrations at Lisieux, France, marking the solemn consecration of the beautiful basilica erected in honour of St. Teresa, "The Little Flower." During the war the basilica escaped the terrible bombings that razed half the town.

LONDON (By air mail), 12 July.

THE final seal was set on Sunday, 11 July, on a project that fired the imagination of the Catholic world when, in the presence of five cardinals, 59 bishops and more than 100,000 pilgrims, the great Basilica of St. Teresa at Lisieux was consecrated, the culminating act of five days of celebrations. Cardinal Feltin, Archbishop of Paris, presided over the ceremony, as Papal Legate.

While Archbishop Martin of Rouen consecrated the high altar, those in nineteen side chapels were consecrated by prelates of different nations. The English altar was consecrated by Bishop Rudderham of Clifton, the Scots altar by Bishop Black of Paisley, and the United States' altar by Bishop O'Connor, rector of Rome's North American College.

About 7,000 people crowded into the basilica for the consecration, while tens of thousands of others on the terrace outside, followed the ceremony through loudspeakers and heard Pontifical Mass from die altar built, with its semicircular sanctuary, into the flight of steps rising to the great west door.

SYMBOLIC PROCESSION

In the afternoon the town was virtually closed to all traffic as a huge procession travelled the principal streets. In it were groups from all the provinces of France and several foreign delegations. The huge cortege, full of pageantry and historical and religious symbolism, followed St. Teresa's relics to the basilica, while the whole town was filled with the incessant voices of the people raised in prayer or hymn.

The theme of the procession was the dependence on the "Little Flower" of people of all countries and all walks of life. So there marched together men and women from the fertile regions of France, carrying scythes, sickles and forks, blue-coated miners and whitecoated men of science carrying an assortment of precision instruments. Gleaming costumes of other ages made resplendent contrast as cities or provinces illustrated their histories. From one country area came bell-ringers wearing gold—and silver—braided birettas and playing lusty harmonies as they walked.

The spiritual side of the pageant was graphically illusstrated by the huge crosses carried by laity and religious. Large boxes borne shoulder-high on biers—one by the brown-robed Garmelite nuns—were labelled: "Prayers of the People" and "Prayers of Religious." Behind such a box inscribed "Offering of Mourners" walked a group of black-robed widows.

In the evening the great basilica, overlooking the little town from its hill-top position, was bathed in light.

The whole town was en fete for the great occasion and to the English pilgrims—a group of 30 marched to the basilica behind the Union Jack—the scene was reminiscent of London in its Coronation garb.

ST. TERESA'S ROSES

Coloured pennants flew from the high masts that lined the streets and carried too, many symbols of the fertile soil of France. In the cathedral square, where on Saturday the Cardinal Legate was received with military honours, flew the brown and white banners of Carmel, interspersed with the Papal colours, while from the centre of the square towered a huge cross. At the foot of St. Teresa's Avenue which climbs to the basilica's copper-coloured angels robed "in vivid colours beckoned the pilgrim columns. St. Teresa's roses and petals were everywhere, wreathed around the flagstaffs, looped albng the walls and across the streets and studding the window shrines of the people's homes.

Among the cluster of flags immediately opposite the Carmel, flew the Union Jack. All along the Rue Victor Hugo—which . joins the cathedral with St. Teresa's Avenue—fluttered the Red Ensign from high masts decorated also with clusters of red, white and blue flowers and the fleur-delys quartering the cross on a blue shield.

The ceremonies opened on the Wednesday evening when, in the gathering dusk, a procession of bishops, priests, nuns and laity, headed by the Little Singers of the Wooden Cross from Bayeux, escorted 20 reliquaries containing relics of martyrs from die Carmel to the basilica. These were the relics that now lie beneath the cathedral's altar-stones.

To the southern end of the wide basilica terrace a large wooden cross stood on an altar beneath a huge tent-like canopy. Into sockets in the cross were placed the reliquaries, thereafter guarded night and day by relays of men until they were carried in pro cession into the basilica on Sunday morning.

CHILDREN'S DAY

The following day thousands of children from all over Normandy and beyond gathered before the basilica carrying banners and cardboard models of the great church. For two hours in the morning they sang hymns and listened to the exhortations of their chaplains. In the afternoon they heard Mass in the open, with youth banners flying on the basilica steps behind the altar.

Friday was dedicated to the family and during the ceremonies children were blessed and families consecrated to Our Lady.

Cardinal Feltin arrived on Saturday morning and was solemnly received in the Carmel chapel. From there he drove for a civic welcome to the cathedral square (Place Thiers) to be greeted by a. military band with troops at the salute.

St Teresa's Basilica represents one of the greatest building achievements of modern times. An immense, domed building of pale granite, it has taken only 25 years to complete and, for the most part, adorned with vivid paintings and brilliant mosaics, despite the interruption of the work by the car.  It is a monument that symbolizes not only France's veneration for the "Little Flower," but that of the whole Catholic world, for towards its construction every nation has subscribed.

Phases in its construction are: laying of the first stone, 1929; the great terrace inaugurated, 1931; crypt opened, 1932; Way of the Cross blessed, 1934; basilica (still without its dome) blessed by the persent Holy Father, then Cardinal Pacelli, on 11 July 1937; cross surmounting the dome blessed on 11 July, 1939.

Miraculously the basilica escaped the terrible bombings that razed half the town, though more than 100 bombs fell in its immediate vicinity, some at the foot of its walls, which were damaged but not seriously impaired.