Madagascar bishop gives relic to St. Theresa’s

 By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

BLACKSTONE – St. Theresa Parish received a relic of its patron’s parents for its 90th anniversary. Presenting the relic at the anniversary Mass Sunday was a bishop whose parents were the first couple married in the parish.
Bishop Donald J. L. Pelletier, a Missionary of Our Lady of La Salette and retired bishop of Morondava, Madagascar, said that his parents were married in the rectory (his grandfather’s homestead) on July 23, 1929. So, he said, he wanted to come for the parish’s 90th anniversary, bringing the relic of St. Therese’s parents.
He told part of the story of the relic at Mass, and he and his cousins gave The Catholic Free Press additional details.
The 88-year-old missionary priest said he grew up in Blackstone and Attleboro, was sent to Madagascar as a La Salette priest in 1958, and has been there ever since. He retired in 2010 but continues to live and minister there. He visits relatives and his congregation here each year. He’s planning to be back in Madagascar in time for Pope Francis’ visit in September.
After Sunday’s Mass, St. Theresa’s parishioners shared memories at a dinner, complete with an anniversary cake – and a birthday cake for their pastor, Father Thien X. Nguyen. The dinner was held in their former church, now the Millerville Men’s Club. Beatrice Desilets, 99, remembered attending Mass there.
The parish’s anniversary and the sacrament of matrimony were special focuses at the Mass.
Just before processing into the church, Bishop Pelletier unveiled and blessed the relic and a picture of Saints Louis and Zelie Martin, parents of St. Therese of Lisieux. Focusing on the important role of marriage and family for holiness, he said that if she is such a great saint, she must have had outstanding parents.
Surrounding the relic is a replica of the crown of the watch that St. Therese’s father made for her first Communion, Bishop Pelletier said. On the back, not visible because the relic is mounted on the church wall, is a replica of a medallion of the Old Testament couple Tobiah and Sarah, which St. Therese’s father gave her mother for their wedding.  
Bishop Pelletier said he got the picture of St. Therese’s parents in Madagascar after they were declared Blessed, a step on the path to sainthood.
The relic’s story goes like this, according to the bishop and his cousins Maurice Frederic Aubin and Suzanne Blouin, members of St. Theresa Parish.
The story goes back to the wedding of the bishop’s parents, Donat Pelletier and Alice Aubin. In a wedding photo of theirs, there is a picture of St. Therese on the wall.
Several years ago a picture of St. Therese, thought to be the same one, turned up in an antique shop. When the woman who bought it there went to reframe it, she found a baptismal certificate behind it. Hoping to find the family the certificate came from, she told The Call, a newspaper in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, which ran a story about the find in 2015.  
That’s how the bishop’s family found out about this certificate of his great aunt, who was born and baptized on Oct. 1, 1896 and died at age 4. (Oct. 1 later became St. Therese’s feast day.)
The woman who bought the picture of St. Therese and found the certificate behind it gave them both to Bishop Pelletier’s family.
He said he took them to Lisieux in 2017 to receive a blessing for the family, which has received so many blessings through St. Therese, and to leave them in the archives there so they would not be lost again.
“At Lisieux they were very, very happy, because they like stories like that,” he said. He said the basilica’s rector gave him the first class relic of St. Therese’s parents.
“My very first thought when I received that relic was that I would give it to this parish for its 90th anniversary,” Bishop Pelletier told the Blackstone parishioners. “I pray that this relic … will help engaged couples” prepare for their weddings and encourage married couples to place their marital love under the protection of Louis and Zelie. In moments of joy or trial parishioners can place their intentions before the relic, confident that St. Therese’s parents will intercede for them, he said.
Father Nguyen said it was Bishop Pelletier’s idea to have the 90th anniversary celebration, and that he celebrates Mass at St. Theresa’s about once a year.
“This is very important for us,” he said of the bishop’s gift of the relic and picture of St. Therese’s parents. “Bishop Donald loves us so much.”     
“I think as a parish we’re just so blessed to have this wonderful bishop come visit us, come home,” said Denise Vose, a parishioner for more than 30 years with her husband, Robert. “Just to have the relic … such a beautiful gift! And I hope it’s the new beginning of a new chapter in St. Theresa’s Church.”
Mr. Vose, emcee, told dinner attendees that when he and his wife first came to St. Theresa’s a parishioner repeatedly told him he should be a lector. That’s what started his involvement there – someone reaching out and being persistent – he said.
“It’s like family … it’s like being home,” Donald Dalpe said of St. Theresa’s Parish, where he’s been a parishioner for 35 years. He said his grandmother Ella Robidoux, a founding member, brought him and his siblings there when she babysat them.
Claire Martin said she and her husband, Raymond, left another parish for St. Theresa’s because “it was a smaller, friendlier parish.”