Happy Feast/Afterglow/Octave of St Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face
Fr. Thomas Koller
St. Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face
Marie Francoise Martin, born January 2, 1873 at Alencon, France, was the youngest of 9 children. After her mother’s death the family moved to Lisieux where she was educated at the Benedictine Abbey school. At the age of 10 she suffered from a strange illness of which she was miraculously cured by the Blessed Virgin. When she was 15 she entered the Carmelite Monastery in Lisieux, where two of her sisters had preceded her. She was intensely faithful to the Rule, but the full heroism of her fidelity and of her closeness to God was not even comprehended by most of the nuns until after her death. In 1893 she was made assistant Mistress of Novices and during that time she formulated her “Little Way” of confidence and spiritual childhood. After great suffering both physical and spiritual, she died September 30, 1897. Beatified in 1923, canonized in 1925, she was declared Patroness of the Missions by Pope Pius XI. Pope John Paul II declared her the 33rd Doctor of the Church in 1997.
From Her Writings
- It is so consoling to think that Jesus, divine strength itself, has experienced our weakness, that He trembled at the sight of the chalice He had so ardently desired.
- You know that Our Lord does not look at the greatness or the difficulty of an action, but at the love with which you do it. What then, have you to fear?
- We can never have too much confidence in the good God who is so powerful and so merciful. We obtain from Him as much as we hope for.
- How good our Jesus is. How loving and tender. How easy it is to touch His Heart!
- When, with a truly filial confidence, we cast our faults into the consuming furnace of love, they will for certain be entirely consumed.
- My dear Mother Mary, I think that I am happier than you. I have you as a Mother and you haven’t the Blessed Virgin to love as I have.
- Remember that the dear Jesus is there in the Tabernacles expressly for you, for you alone. Remember that He is consumed with a desire to come into your heart.
- Prayer is a cry of gratitude and love, in the midst of trial as well as in joy.
- To me, prayer is a lifting up of the heart; it is a glance thrown towards heaven.
- One ray from His Heart can, in an instant, cause a soul to blossom for all eternity.
- What sweet joy to think that the Lord is just, that He takes into account our weakness, and knows perfectly the frailty of our nature.
- The goal of all our undertakings should be not so much a task perfectly completed as the accomplishment of the will of God.
- We have this life only in which to live by faith.
- I’m suffering only for an instant [in the present moment]. It’s because we think of the past and the future that we become discouraged and fall into despair. (Last Conversations Aug. 19, n. 10)
- “What did you do to reach such unchangeable peace?” I forgot self, and I was careful to seek myself in nothing. (Last Conversations Aug. 3, n. 1)
- “You’re going to leave me!” I [Celine] said. “Oh! not for the space of an inch!” Resuming my usual theme, I said, “Do you believe I can still hope to be with you in heaven? This seems impossible to me. It’s like expecting a cripple with one arm to climb to the top of a greased pole to fetch an object.” “Yes, but if there’s a giant there who picks up the little cripple in his arms, raises him high, and gives him the object desired! This is exactly what God will do for you, but you must not be preoccupied about the matter; you must say to God: ‘I know very well that I’ll never be worthy of what I hope for, but I holed out my hand to You like a beggar and I’m sure You will answer me fully, for You are so good!’” (Last Conversations (with Celine) Aug. 5, n. 3)
- Everything is a grace.
NOVENA PRAYER (FEAST DAY: OCTOBER 1)
Oh, glorious St. Therese, whom Almighty God has raised up to aid and inspire the human family, I implore your miraculous intercession. You are so powerful in obtaining every need of body and spirit from the heart of God. Holy Mother Church proclaims you “prodigy of miracles. . . the greatest saint of modern times”. Now I fervently beseech you to answer my petition (mention here) and to carry out your promises of spending heaven doing good upon earth…of letting fall from heaven a shower of roses. Little Flower, give me your childlike faith, to see the Face of God in the people and experiences of my life, and to love God with full confidence. St. Therese, my Carmelite sister, I will fulfill your plea “to be made known everywhere” and I will continue to lead others to Jesus through you. Amen.
O Little Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, please pick for me a rose from the heavenly gardens and send it to me as a message of love. O Little Flower of Jesus, ask God today to grant the favors I now place with confidence in your hands….. (mention specific requests) St. Therese, help me to always believe as you did, in God’s great love for me, so that I might imitate your “Little Way” each day.
Her Act of Oblation to Merciful Love
[see www.rc.net/org/therese/q&a.htm for an explanatilon of how this is NOT a request for more suffering, but to compensate the good God for the refusal which His creatures oppose to the Love that He desires to shower upon them.]
“Oh Jesus! Why can’t I tell all little souls how unspeakable is Your condescension? I feel that if You found a soul weaker and littler than mine, which is impossible, You would be pleased to grant it still greater favors, provided it abandoned itself with total confidence to Your Infinite Mercy…Yes, I know it, and I beg you to do it. I beg you to cast Your Divine Glance upon a great number of little souls. I beg You to choose a LEGION of little Victims worthy of Your Love.”
J.M.J.T.
[Jesus Mary Joseph Teresa]
Offering of myself as a Victim of Holocaust to God’s Merciful Love
O My God! Most Blessed Trinity, I desire to Love You and to make You Loved, to work for the glory of Holy Church by saving souls on earth and liberating those suffering in purgatory. I desire to accomplish Your will perfectly and to reach the degree of glory You have prepared for me in Your Kingdom. I desire, in a word, to be a saint, but I feel my helplessness and I beg You, O my God! to be Yourself my Sanctity!
Since You loved me so much as to give me Your only Son as my Savior and my Spouse, the infinite treasures of His merits are mine. I offer them to You with gladness, begging You to look upon me only in the Face of Jesus and in His heart burning with Love.
I offer You, too, all the merits of the saints (in heaven and on earth), their acts of Love, and those of the holy angels. Finally, I offer You, O Blessed Trinity! the Love and the merits of the Blessed Virgin, my dear Mother. It is to her I abandon my offering, begging her to present it to You. Her Divine Son, my Beloved Spouse, told us in the days of His mortal life: “Whatsoever you ask the Father in my name he will give it to you!” (Jn 16:23) I am certain, then, that You will grant my desires; I know, O my God! that the more You want to give, the more You make us desire. I feel in my heart immense desires and it is with confidence I ask You to come and take possession of my soul. Ah! I cannot receive Holy Communion as often as I desire, but, Lord, are You not all-powerful? Remain in me as in a tabernacle and never separate Yourself from Your little victim.
I want to console You for the ingratitude of the wicked, and I beg of You to take away my freedom to displease You. If through weakness I sometimes fall, may Your Divine Glance cleanse my soul immediately, consuming all my imperfections like the fire that transforms everything into itself.
I thank You, O my God! for all the graces You have granted me, especially the grace of making me pass through the crucible of suffering. It is with joy I shall contemplate You on the Last Day carrying the scepter of Your Cross. Since You deigned to give mea share in this very precious Cross, I hope in heaven to resemble You and to see shining in my glorified body the sacred stigmata of Your Passion
After earth’s Exile, I hope to go and enjoy You in the Fatherland, but I do not want to lay up merits for heaven. I want to work for Your Love alone with the one purpose of pleasing You, consoling Your Sacred Heart, and saving souls who will love You eternally.
In the evening of life, I shall appear before You with empty hands, for I do not ask You, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is stained in Your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in Your own Justice and to receive from Your Love the eternal possession of Yourself. I want no other Throne, no other Crown but You, my Beloved!
Time is nothing in Your eyes, and a single day is like a thousand years. You can, then, in one instant prepare me to appear before You.
In order to live in one single act of perfect love, I OFFER MYSELF AS A VICTIM OF HOLOCAUST TO YOUR MERCIFUL LOVE, asking You to consume me incessantly, allowing the waves of infinite tenderness closed up within You to overflow into my soul, and that thus I may become a martyr of Your Love, O my God!
May this martyrdom, after having prepared me to appear before You, finally cause me to die and may my soul take its flight without any delay into the eternal embrace of Your Merciful Love.
I want, O my Beloved, at each beat of my heart to renew this offering to You an infinite number of times, until the shadows having disappeared I may be able to tell You of my Love in an Eternal Face to Face!
--Marie-Francoise-Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, unworthy Carmelite religious
This 9th day of June, Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, In the year of grace, 1895