When Pope Francis boarded the plane in Rome on Monday, July 22 to travel to Rio de Janeiro for World Youth Day, he was carrying a black leather bag. Since no recent Popes have carried their own bags, the story was widely reported (see the Catholic News Agency story).

 [photo credit: ANSA/Telenews]

A week later, on Monday, July 29, when Pope Francis held a press conference on the plane that was returning to Rome, the black bag was still of such interest that journalist Andrea Tornielli asked him:

 Holy Father, I have a question that is, perhaps, somewhat indiscreet: the photograph has gone around the world of you, when we left, going up the steps of the plane carrying a black bag, and there were articles throughout the world that commented on this novelty: yes, of the Pope going up ... it never happened, we said, that the Pope went up with his baggage in hand. So, there were even theories about what the black bag contained. Now, my questions are: one, why did you carry the black bag and why was it not carried by a collaborator, and two, can you tell us what was inside? Thank you.

Pope Francis:

It didn’t have the key of the atomic bomb! Alas! I carried it because I’ve always done so: when I travel, I carry it. What is inside? There is my razor, there is the Breviary, there is the agenda, there is a book to read – I took one on Saint Teresina to whom I am devoted. I have always carried the bag when I travel: it’s normal. But we must be normal … I don’t know .. what you are saying is a bit strange to me, that that photo has gone around the world. But we must get used to being normal, the normality of life.

[Courtesy of www.zenit.org]. 

 How inspiring that Pope Francis took a book about St. Therese with him to World Youth Day, of which she is patron.  Interestingly, in 1887, when Therese herself arrived in Rome on Sunday, November 13, 1887 for an audience with the Pope, and when she left Rome on  Thursday, November 24, she was carrying a black bag, a traveling-bag which belonged to her father.  She used it as hand luggage during the pilgrimage to Rome.  See the image below.  I wonder what it contained?

Louis Martin's traveling-bag; St. Therese used as hand luggage in Rome

  Please visit the site "la petite Thérèse" to see its latest and most beautiful offering: a panoramic view of Alencon and Lisieux and of the sites associated with Therese in each.  This opportunity to see the sites associated with Thérèse as they appear in the surrounding landscape is not to be missed.  See Les Buissonnets, St. Pierre's Cathedral, the Lisieux Carmel, and the basilica in Lisieux; see Therese's birthplace in Alencon and the village of Semallè, where she was nursed.

This panoramic visit is the work of those who have created a beautiful "virtual museum" out of the house at Saint-Ouen-le-Pin where Thérèse spent several summer vacations.  Their work is exquisite; I cannot presume to praise it.  A webcam allows you to visit the house and garden 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  See more about this pilgrimage site and about Therese's time at Saint-Ouen-le-Pin.   What a beautiful way to create a pilgrimage site!  How wonderful it would be if other places Therese visited could be similarly made available.

At the site of the Shrine at Alençon, please see new photos of the pilgrimage at Alençon to mark the feast of Louis and Zelie Martin.  You will see the pilgrims gathered on the bridge where the Martins first met, then in the countryside, including at the red brick house at Semalle where Thérèse lived with the wet nurse, Rose Taillé, in 1873-1874, and then the Mass at the Basilica of Notre-Dame in Alençon.  Cardinal Barbarin, Primate of Gaul, delivered a conference and presided at the Mass.  The newspaper Ouest-France remarked on June 4 that "the presence of the Primate of Gaul is a strong indication about the investigation of the dossier [of the presumed miracle] for the canonization of the Martin spouses." 

 St. Therese wrote "My Weapons" for the profession of her cousin, Marie Guerin, Sister Marie of the Eucharist. Marie was the last of Therese's five novices to enter and thus the last to profess her vows (on March 25, 1897).  Therese had only a little more than six months to live when she wrote:

Smiling, I bravely face the fire.

And in your arms, O my Divine Spouse,

I shall die singing on the battlefield,

My Weapons in hand!...

 You may read the English translation of the poem Natasha Saint-Pier is singing in French right here at the Web site of the archives of the Carmel of Lisieux.

The exhibit "St. Therese of Lisieux, or burning with love" will be part of the Youth Festival of World Youth Day 2013 in Rio de Janeiro.  This exposition, organized by the Carmel of Lisieux and the Association of the Friends of Therese and of the Carmel of Lisieux, drew seven million visitors at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris last summer.  The trip to Brazil for World Youth Day, of which St. Therese is co-patron, is its first visit to the New World.

See the exhibit (set up at Notre Dame) in the film below:

The exposition consists of 36 photographic panels designed to show the different kinds of love Therese experienced:

• love for her family (her environment, family, the Blessed Virgin, the Carmelite Order, the saints, and, of course, Jesus – child, suffering, and risen);
• love for the people of her time;
• love for people beyond this earthly life.

The goal of the exposition, as translated from the Web site of Notre-Dame Cathedral:

The exhibition is designed to be shown in places of solitude and of distress – prisons, hospitals, retreat houses, public places … to show the extraordinary fruitfulness of the life of Thérèse with her double message of hope. The exposition wants to tell us, on the one hand, that Thérèse is a source of graces and of abundant consolation to all who suffer and who call upon her; and, on the other hand, that no life, however poor and limited it may be, is necessarily wasted – that is the life of Thérèse herself, who had always suffered, and who died at the age of 24 years (1873-1897), in the Carmel where she had withdrawn.

Please see the PowerPoint of this exposition created by World Youth Day (with thanks to www.rio2013.com).

Where to see the exposition:

The exposition will be held in the Praça do Conhecimento at Morro do Alemão.  World Youth Day reports that more information may be available at the WYD Media Center.