Saturday, October 1, 2011

Happy Feast Day, Little Flower!

St. Therese, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. Please accept these petitions, hopes, needs, and dreams I list below. Please present them to our Loving Father so that God may do what is best for us, for our loved ones, and for the fulfillment of God's Kingdom. Continue your shower of roses in our lives. We ask you, dear friend, with the bold confidence and loving surrender you taught us. We make this prayerful petition in the name of Jesus and through the power of His Spirit.

****************************************************************************

St Therese of Liseux, the child of holy parents and a cloistered Carmelite, has had an effect upon the world that is seldom seen.  She transcends religion, while being a Doctor of  The Catholic Church.  She is prayed with and to by countless people yet an email that still circulates on the Internet confuses her with Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

She has been my prayer companion for many years.  When I first returned to the Church, I remembered a statue of St Therese that has stood at my old parish for at least a half a century - I never remember Christ the King Church in Pleasant Hill without that statue and I will be 56 years old in December.  The memory of that serene face, that beautiful work of art, caused me to seek her out in a fashion I had not done before - I read her book, I found her website, I prayed with her and most of all I asked her for roses.

Within a week of beginning to pray with St Therese, I got an email from an old friend I had not heard from in maybe five or six years.  Attached to her email was a beautiful picture of a large, red rose, sparkling as though in sunlight.  I remember thinking to myself, "She is listening to me, and she uses the Internet".

Though I am pursuing the life of a Lay Dominican, St Therese continues to be a special companion of mine.  I am grateful for her prayers and today, on this her feast day, I ask:

St Therese, my beloved friend, please intercede for my broken family.  We need your help, Little Flower, for so many of us have strayed from the religion of our youth and scorned that which we know is Truth for what is convenient and loved by the world.  I beg of you, St Therese, send roses of love down upon my family so that the fires of their Holy Baptisms will be rekindled and they will return to Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

No comments: