A lot of people don't know that Bakersfield has a patron saint.

She, of course, has never been here. As far as I know, no one who has lived in Bakersfield has ever been formally recognized as a saint.

She never lived in Fresno either.

But St. Therese de Lisieux, for whom Mother Teresa was named, got to be the patroness of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno (which includes Bakersfield) because a Fresno bishop happened to be in Rome when St. Therese was canonized.

Bishop John G. MacGinley was chatting with Pope Pius XI in 1925 at the declaration of sainthood. That was just 28 years after Therese died of tuberculosis on Sept. 30, 1897, at the young age of 24, in a Carmelite convent in Lisieux, France.

The bishop asked if the newly sainted could become the patron saint of the Fresno diocese.

I'm guessing the Pope felt the Fresno area really needed a saint (what with the Grapes of Wrath just a few years away), so he said okay as long as a church was named in her honor.

The former Our Lady of Victory Parish, established in 1919, was changed and ,
became  the first parish in the world dedicated to St. Thérèse of Lisieux.

She was born Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin on Jan. 2, 1873 to Louis
Martin, a watchmaker, and his wife, Zélie-Marie, both very religious people.

She wanted to be a nun and she nudged her way into the convent a little sooner (age 15) than was the norm at the time. She kept a diary that was later made into a book, Story of a Soul, and was so profoundly theological — but in a light and breezy way — that it was the cornerstone of her sainthood.

A patron saint is a protector and an advocate for a person to God.

So we have a young French woman who lets God know about the special people in the southern San Joaquin Valley. 

Now you know.

Posted by Steve E. Swenson

P.S. The Californian will soon have a full-length story about her