In this less than three-minute film posted today, see an interview with Father Antonio Sangalli, the vice-postulator of the cause for canonization of Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin, and footage of pilgrims praying before the "family relics' in the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome. 

In this film of the opening Mass of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, view Pope Francis incensing and praying before the "traveling reliquaries" of St. Therese of Lisieux and of her parents, Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin, from 10:18 to 12:10.  Sunday, October 5, 2014.

Louis Martin visited Rome at least twice in his lifetime.  One hundred and twenty-nine years ago, when Therese was twelve, he made a pilgrimage through Europe with a priest friend, Father Charles Marie.  On September 27, 1885, he wrote from Rome to his oldest daughter, Marie:

We finally arrived in Rome at six-thirty in the morning.  For me. Saint Peter's is really the most beautiful thing in the world.  I prayed for you, whom I love so much.  It's so pleasant to pray here! . . .

During these visits to Saint Peter's, Louis, of course, prayed for his five daughters, including St. Therese, and remembered in prayer his wife, who had died eight years before: 

I place you all in the grace of God and pray for you every day in Saint Peter's.  The thought of your mother also follows me constantly.

[See A Call to a Deeper Love: The Family Correspondence of the Parents of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, 1863-1885.  Staten Island, New York: Society of Saint Paul, 2011, pp. 363-364.].

           Two years later, in November 1887, he returned to Rome as part of a diocesan pilgrimage with Celine and Therese.  It was then, on November 20, 1887, that Therese asked Pope Leo XIII for permission to enter the Carmel.  Because she refused to leave the Pope's feet, she was carried out of the room by the Swiss Guards.  But on May 17, 1925, her relics were warmly welcomed at Saint Peter's for the ceremony of her canonization.  That night the outer facade of Saint Peter's was outlined with lamps for the first time since 1870.  

The relics of St. Therese returned to Saint Peter's Basilica on October 19, 1997, when St. John Paul II declared her a Doctor of the Church.  The relics of Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin were exposed for veneration in Saint Peter's Basilica in January 2009, soon after their beatification, and Pope Benedict XV received their relics in his general audience on Wednesday, January 14, 2009. 

Pope Francis incenses the relics of St. Therese and of her parents, Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin at the beginning of the Mass to open the Synod of Bishops on the Family. St. Peter's Basilica, October 5, 2014. Photo credit: CTV