Sarah Zabroski, a Panther Valley High School sophomore, was crowned the 2016 Rose Queen on Sunday during the 84th Shower of Roses in Nesquehoning.

Being crowned as Rose Queen is quickly becoming a rite of passage in Zabroski’s family."My grandmother and sister were also Rose Queen," she said. "It feels really good to carry on this family tradition."Giovanna Digilio was named Rose Princess.Zabroski and Digilio took part in a brief parade around the streets surrounding the church as a light drizzle fell from the sky.Sarah Zabroski, a Panther Valley High School sophomore, was crowned the 2016 Rose Queen on Sunday during the 84th Shower of Roses in Nesquehoning.The event is held near the Shrine of St. Therese Lisieux in the New Columbus section of the borough and honors the woman known as “the little flower of Jesus.”Being crowned as Rose Queen is quickly becoming a rite of passage in Zabroski’s family.“My grandmother and sister were also Rose Queen,” she said. “It feels really good to carry on this family tradition.”Giovanna Digilio was named Rose Princess.Zabroski and Digilio took part in a brief parade around the streets surrounding the church as a light drizzle fell from the sky.Officials said weather would keep the helicopter from dropping “roses from heaven,” a popular tradition during the annual event.Instead, roses were handed out to each person in attendance.“It’s unfortunate the weather didn’t hold out, but it’s still a wonderful service and time to come together,” said Joe Harris, who made the trip from Pottsville. “I come every year with some family and friends. It’s beautiful. We make a day of it.”The roses represent the belief that when someone’s prayer is answered by St. Therese, that person will smell the fragrance of roses, or find a rose in an unusual place. The belief is thought to have come from St. Therese’s promise to send a shower of roses to earth as proof of God’s existence. St. Therese was canonized in 1925.Monsignor Francis P. Schoenauer, a former pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Church, officiated an afternoon mass in the former Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Nesquehoning.During his homily, Schoenauer spoke of St. Therese’s patience and love, urging those people attending Mass to follow in her footsteps.He told a story of how St. Therese was washing clothes with a nun who would splash her with water.“St. Therese expressed nothing but love, and eventually, the Sister grew to change her ways,” Schoenauer said. “While never a superstar, she did everything in her life with the same type of love.”Describing today’s world as one that can be “uncaring and unkind,” Schoenauer said St. Therese’s lessons are more important now than ever before.“When we turn on the news, we’re dominated with violence or other disappointment,” he said. “As St. Therese said, without love, deeds, even the most brilliant, count as nothing.”The festival restarted in 2012, four years after the Allentown Diocese closed Our Lady of Mount Carmel, folding it, along with Sacred Heart and Immaculate Conception churches, into a new church, St. Francis of Assisi, which was closed this past July.During the remainder of the year, the shrine is open from 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays for novena and benediction and at 9 a.m. on Saturdays for Mass.