Saints are more alive now, in the kingdom of God, than they ever were on earth. Their souls, radiant in Christ’s glory, continue to walk with us.

That thought came rushing back as my plane touched down at LAX in October.

I had come for a sacred reason: the relics of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the “Little Flower” who conquered the world with love, were arriving in Los Angeles, and I had been invited to document this historic moment.

St. Thérèse and I have a complicated relationship.

For years, I wanted to read her autobiography, Story of a Soul, but I never seemed to get to it — until one day I found a copy on top of a stack of free books in a parish rectory.

But every time I would start it, something would get in the way.

So I downloaded the audiobook.

Same thing. I never seemed to be able to find the time.

But this time would be different. I was arriving in Los Angeles a day early, and I was determined to finally immerse myself in her words before encountering her relics. On the beach.

Where all great reading is done.

So there I was, with the Pacific stretching endlessly before me, finally, finally, reading the autobiography that had eluded me for years.

And when I finished it, I sat there thunderstruck, overwhelmed by the power of what I read.

How could words written by a young, cloistered nun more than a century ago reach through time and grab the human soul? How could her simple phrases so profoundly rearrange something fundamental in a person’s understanding of love and holiness?

I understood, in that moment on the sand with waves crashing and seagulls crying overhead, why millions have fallen in love with this young saint.

This wasn’t just a book; it’s a miracle in print.

As a young girl entering Carmel at just 15, she dreamed of becoming a great saint. 

Yet she quickly realized her littleness — her weakness, her ordinariness — made that impossible on her own.

And it was precisely there that God revealed to her the “little way”: a path not of grand gestures, but of childlike trust, hidden sacrifices, and simple acts of love.

Her heart ached to live every vocation at once — to be a missionary, a martyr, a contemplative. And then came the revelation that would change everything:

“I understood that the Church has a heart, and that this heart burns with love. I understood that Love embraces all vocations, that Love is everything… My vocation is Love.”

Thérèse wanted to be love at the very heart of the Church, to burn so brightly with Christ’s love that her entire life, and even her heaven, would draw souls closer to Him.

The next day I caught up with the relics at St. Thérèse Carmelite Church in Alhambra — a parish in its 101st year, with nearly 40 of those years spent in perpetual adoration, where Christ in the Eucharist is adored day and night.

I’d been to Alhambra before, when the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage passed through on the St. Katharine Drexel Route. 

The community carried the weight of trial. Just up the road lay Altadena, scarred by the disastrous wildfires that had swept through earlier in the year. Charred hillsides and empty lots where homes once stood.

And yet, in those same streets, thousands processed with Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. It was a place touched by both heaven and hell — now marked again by grace.

And now, that grace returned in a new and profound way.

The relics of St. Thérèse, the “Little Flower,” who promised to spend her heaven doing good on earth, had come to this parish. 

As Christ once walked those streets in the Blessed Sacrament, now His saint arrived in the bones that once held her heart.

The procession moved solemnly to the Sacred Heart Retreat House of the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles.

The lines to venerate her stretched as far as the eye could see, winding through church grounds and spilling into the street. From dawn until dusk, they never ceased.

 

Many have met Thérèse through her autobiography. 

Others through her sister Céline’s, Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face’s, famous photographs. 

And millions have met her through answered prayers, conversions and healings beyond counting.

Her life a testimony that holiness isn’t reserved for the extraordinary few. God can take the smallest, most ordinary soul and make them luminous with grace.

A cloistered nun who never traveled became one of the most influential voices in modern Christianity. Her “little way” inspired Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, and countless others who discovered that greatness lies not in grand gestures, but in doing small things with immense love.

If someone were to ask me today, “Have you met St. Thérèse?”

My answer would be a joyful and resounding “Yes!” Not just through her relics, but by meeting her through her insatiable love of Christ and her desire to draw us all to Him.

She’s waiting, ready to show you her Little Way, which begins with simply taking who or what is directly before you, however big or small, and attending to that with great love.

Her relics continue their pilgrimage across America, bringing heaven close to those who seek her intercession. Each stop is an opportunity for encounter, for grace, for the transformation that comes when heaven brushes against our ordinary lives.

What I witnessed in Los Angeles — the tears, the quiet miracles, the experience of her presence — awaits at every stop.

You should meet her, the encounter will change you.

St. Thérèse is coming.

Don’t miss the opportunity.

Meet her.

Upcoming Pilgrimage Stops