At the request of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and the Bishops of England and Wales the relics Saint Thérèse of Lisieux are coming to England and Wales from France as part of a worldwide tour and will be on display in more than 20 churches.  We can be sure that this will be a time of grace for our Church and for our country.  In the words of the Holy Father “The relics of the saints are traces of that invisible but real presence which sheds light upon the shadows of the world and reveals the Kingdom of Heaven in our midst.”

To help our pupils and students to know more about Saint Thérèse  and to encourage them and their families to visit the relics when they are in their area, CESEW has produced a special PowerPoint presentation for schools with the hope that it will be used eg in assemblies in September at the start of the new academic year.  Please follow the instructions below to download and run the presentation with accompanying audio.

 This is only an introduction to Saint Thérèse and her inspirational life.  Many excellent publications exist, not least St Therese’s own autobiography The Story of a Soul, and a great deal of information about the saint is available online.  The Catholic Church in England and Wales website gives more details can be found regarding the visit: Relics of St Therese of Lisieux.

Also attached is an adobe file with two prayer cards which you might like to print off (and laminate) to distribute to pupils in your school.  A schedule of where and when the relics will be on display during the month that they are on tour is shown on the reverse of the cards.  The dates and venues are:

September 2009:

16^th Portsmouth Cathedral                                  17^th Plymouth Cathedral

18^th St Teresa of Lisieux, Taunton                     19^th St Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham

21^st Sacred Heart, Coleshill, Birmingham         22^nd Cardiff Cathedral

23^rd St Teresa’s, Bristol                                        24^th Metropolitan Cathedral, Liverpool

25^th Salford Cathedral, Manchester                    27^th Manchester University

28^th Lancaster Cathedral                                      30^th St Andrew’s, Newcastle upon Tyne

October 2009:

  1^st York Minster                                         2^nd Middlesbrough Cathedral

  3^rd Leeds Cathedral                                5^th Nottingham Cathedral

  6^th National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, Nottingham

  7^th Oxford Oratory, Oxford                       8^th St Joseph’s, Gerard’s Cross

  9^th Aylesford Priory, Kent                      11^th Carmelite Church, Kensington

12^th Westminster Cathedral

INSTRUCTIONS on how to download and run the presentation with audio:

Step 1: Download the powerpoint and the track below.

Step 2: Save both files in a new folder together by themselves.

Step 3: Run powerpoint presentation.