Box of Tricks

Idolatry being a sin and a superstition, thousands of devout pilgrims are expected at Westminster over the next few days to gape in awe at a box containing some bits of a dead nun. Thérèse of Lisieux, who was born in 1873 (or 1871, as the Grauniad hath it) and died at twenty-four, was given a posthumous make-over by her family and canonised in 1925, presumably because a life of sickly humility followed by an early and discreet death represents one of the Catholic church's most treasured ideals of young womanhood. Her philosophy was apparently that what matters is "not great deeds, but great love"; but it is anticipated that about a hundred thousand people in this country will regard gawping at parts of her leg an adequate substitute for both. She is also supposed to have promised to "let fall a shower of roses on earth" after her death, but the authorities at Westminster cathedral have been cynical enough to order fifty thousand pink ones, just in case.