​BE NOT AFRAID! - Jesus and Pope Saint John Paul II

We are finishing up a double novena, and I can't think of anything more inclined to renew our hope than the news that this past Sunday - World Mission Sunday - our Papa Francis canonized 14 new Saints for us! I am sure at least one of them, if not all 14, had no suspicion early on that this big day was coming. That means that we, in the midst of our littleness and weakness, could be the next candidates!

Or better yet, those intentions we keep praying for and those dreams we keep hoping for - they could be the next lucky winner in the not-yet-canonized-holy-ones' affectionate shower of roses begun by St. Aloysius, continued by St. Therese, and joined in these days by myriad would-be-saints in Heaven. I guess the best way to say it in modern parlance is that showering roses is trending!

Let's pray, then, for little Ava and all our other dear ones, that God our loving Father will indulge those eager saints and grant them - Tolton and Marcel to name just two - the petitions they are offering, the miracles they are begging for us today.

Short prayer:

Father Tolton, we ask you with Therese's confidence: obtain for us Ava's complete healing!

Longer prayer:

Father in Heaven, Father Tolton’s suffering service sheds light upon our sorrows; we see them through the prism of your Son’s passion and death. If it be your Will, O God, glorify your servant, Father Tolton, by granting the favor I now request through his intercession (Ava’s healing) so that all may know the goodness of this priest whose memory looms large in the Church he loved.

Complete what you have begun in us that we might work for the fulfillment of your kingdom. Not to us the glory, but glory to you O God, through Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord; Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are our God, living and reigning forever and ever. Amen

And for all out other intentions:

St. John Paul II, give us your love of the Rosary and our Blessed Mother, and through her intercession, please grant all the petitions in our hearts and minds, and even those we have forgotten or don't yet know, especially those which occupy the most adorable Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

Blessed Mother of those whose names you can read in my heart, watch over them with every care. Make their way easy and their labors fruitful. Dry their tears if they weep; sanctify their joys; raise their courage if they weaken; restore their hope if they lose heart, their health if they be ill, truth if they err, and repentance if they fall. Amen.

And now, who are these new saints?!
We are thrilled to announce that among them are our compatriots, 3 Maronite brothers who were laymen, and a Canadian foundress! Not only that, but the canonization of one of them hinged on his obtaining the miraculous healing of a man mauled by a jaguar! Let's renew our hope big time because no matter what we're facing and praying for, I think it might be less than a jaguar-mauling!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's get to know these new saints in some kind of reasonable order with the help of EWTN (and you can read the whole article by clicking on EWTN!) -

The 11 Martyrs of Damascus:

Pope Francis canonized the Martyrs of Damascus, a group of 11 men killed in 1860 for refusing to renounce their Christian faith and convert to Islam. The martyrs, including eight Franciscan friars and three laymen, were attacked in a church in the Christian quarter of Damascus during a wave of religious violence.

The canonized Franciscan friars include six priests and two professed religious — all missionaries from Spain except for Father Engelbert Kolland, who was from Salzburg, Austria. 

Franciscan Father Manuel Ruiz, Father Carmelo Bolta, Father Nicanor Ascanio, Father Nicolás M. Alberca y Torres, Father Pedro Soler, Kolland, Brother Francisco Pinazo Peñalver, and Brother Juan S. Fernández were all declared saints. 

The three laymen were brothers — Francis, Abdel Mooti, and Raphael Massabki — known for their deep piety and devotion to the Christian faith. Francis Massabki, the oldest of the brothers, was a father of eight children. Mooti was a father of five who visited the Church of St. Paul daily for prayer and to teach catechism lessons. The youngest brother, Raphael, was single and was known to spend long periods of time praying in the church and helping the friars.

According to witnesses, the brothers were offered the chance to live if they renounced their faith, but they refused. “We are Christians, and we want to live and die as Christians,” Francis Massabki reportedly said. All 11 were brutally killed that night, some beheaded, others stabbed to death.
“They remained faithful servants,” Pope Francis said. “[They] served in martyrdom and in joy.” 

St. Marie-Leonie Paradis


St. Marie-Léonie Paradis (1840–1912), a Canadian religious sister,  founded the Little Sisters of the Holy Family, an order whose spirituality and charism is the support of priests through both prayer and by taking care of the cooking, cleaning, and laundry in rectories in “humble and joyful service” in imitation of “Christ the Servant.”

Born in the Acadian region of Quebec, Paradis also spent eight years in New York serving in the St. Vincent de Paul Orphanage in the 1860s and taught French at St. Mary’s Academy in Indiana, before founding her religious order in New Brunswick, Canada.

Paradis’ canonization was thanks to the miraculous healing of a newborn in Canada, thanks to her loving intercession.

St. Elena Guerra: An “apostle of the Holy Spirit” and mentor of St. Gemma!

St. Elena Guerra (1835–1914) was known for her ardent devotion to the Holy Spirit. Elena who founded the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, was instrumental in promoting the novena to the Holy Spirit under Pope Leo XIII in 1895. Her writings and spiritual leadership inspired many, including St. Gemma Galgani, a mystic and saint who was her student. 

For much of her 20s, Guerra was bedridden with a serious illness, a challenge that turned out to be transformational for her as she dedicated herself to meditating on Scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers. She felt the call to consecrate herself to God during a pilgrimage to Rome with her father after her recovery and went on to form the religious community dedicated to education.

During her correspondence with Pope Leo XIII, Guerra composed prayers to the Holy Spirit, including a Holy Spirit Chaplet, asking the Lord to “send forth your spirit and renew the world.

“Pentecost is not over,” Guerra wrote. “In fact, it is continually going on in every time and in every place, because the Holy Spirit desired to give Himself to all men and all who want Him can always receive Him, so we do not have to envy the apostles and the first believers; we only have to dispose ourselves like them to receive Him well, and He will come to us as He did to them.”

[Marcel and I want to add that the joy of the Holy Spirit we find in the Little Way where even if we dispose ourselves poorly, He will still come to us because He has mercy on our poverty!]

St. Giuseppe Allamano: spiritual son of St. John Bosco!

One of the most celebrated figures among the new saints is St. Giuseppe Allamano (1851–1926), an Italian diocesan priest who founded the Consolata Missionaries and the Consolata Missionary Sisters. Allamano, though he spent his entire life in Italy, left a global legacy by training missionaries who carried the Gospel to remote corners of Africa, Asia, and South America.

Allamano told the missionaries in the order he founded in northern Italy in 1901 that they needed to be “first saints, then missionaries.”

The medical miracle that led to Allamano’s canonization involved the healing of a man who was attacked by a jaguar in the Amazon rainforest. In 1996, a man named Sorino Yanomami, a member of the indigenous Yanomami tribe in the Amazon, was mauled by a jaguar and left with life-threatening injuries. 

As doctors treated his skull fractures, Consolata missionaries prayed in the hospital with a relic of Allamano, seeking his intercession. Miraculously, Yanomami recovered without any long-term damage, according to the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.

Allamano, whose spiritual director was St. John Bosco, emphasized the importance of holiness in priestly life, telling his priests, “You must not only be holy, but extraordinarily holy.” His influence has endured through the orders he founded, present today in 30 countries across the globe.

* * *

I have tears in my eyes as I think of these 14 new saints and the joy our knowing them is bringing to our dear Holy Father JPII who gave us so many saints and beata.

I'm picturing these new guys and gals, in the company of their brother dear John Paul, having an earnest conversation with Fr. Tolton, explaining that he needs to help Ava now. Their hands are tied in her respect as we have been following the time-honored custom (made hilarious by our efficient American ways!) of invoking one particular holy one in order to advance his cause by getting his hands on this specific miracle for us. 

Hooray for the saints! Hooray for the miracles they procure! But hooray most of all for the Holy Spirit Who fills our hearts with His gifts of joy, peace, and love as we take our own humble places at the crowded table of the saints. Perhaps at today's feast we we'll be served, as little Therese so often was, the less appetizing dishes. Or like Marcel, maybe we'll find that Jesus has played a trick on us and mixed bitter sweets among the other chocolates. Well no worries there - isn't 70% cocoa still the sought after mix? We can find laughter in little Jesus' pranks by loving what He gives us, although I must admit that works best when we're all praying for each other.

Thank you again for joining us in our novenas or in your private prayers. We are finding what is supposed to be our cancer cross to be quite the stylish styrofoam cross with wheels once described by Fr. Groeschel of happy memory! 

Praise God, and may He be blessed in His angels and in His saints, especially these latest. 
We thank Him too for that saint-maker whose feast we celebrate today on the day God installed him as our Holy Father, and here are a few words to remind us why he is John Paul the Great.

The quote “Be not afraid” is from Pope St. John Paul II's inaugural Mass on October 22, 1978. The full quote is: 

“Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch…. I plead with you--never, ever give up on hope, never doubt, never tire, and never become discouraged. Be not afraid!”

​Draw me, we will run!!!

"It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love!" - little St. Therese, Letter 197, to her sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, September 17, 1896

"These striking words of St. Therese of the Child Jesus say it all. They sum up the genius of her spirituality and would suffice to justify that she has been named a Doctor of the Church. Confidence, 'nothing but confidence,' is the sole path that leads us to the Love that grants everything." - Our Holy Father, Pope Francis in his "C'est La Confiance: On Confidence in the Merciful Love of God, Apostolic Exhortation For the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face"

Each year on this day, October 19, my husband and I smile and he asks, "How many years ago was it?"

No, it isn't the anniversary of our marriage, but the anniversary of the best party we ever had - to date, that is, For on this date in 1997, Fr. JR responded to our request that he say a Mass in celebration of the conferral of the Doctorate of St. Therese with a resounding Yes, and then turned the tables by asking if we'd host a few students for pizza afterwards. He would provide the pizza, we the home and the soda (paper good, plastic cups, and warm welcome). 

We put out our wedding guest book for the first time since our wedding a mere 9 years before, and our joy was immense when the record later showed somewhere around 100 guests, including not only dozens upon dozens of college students accompanying our fine young Padre, but even the President and First Lady (of Christendom College, which meant no extra security needed but a great time had by all, since they have the party charism). What a feast!

The first major party we had after our wedding was on Easter Vigil just 8 months after the Nuptial Mass. Packed to the gills and memorable to this day, nearly 36 years later. The late, great Mike Paietta taught me how to do the Hostess Laugh (you start on a high note and cascade down an octave), to be used when a guest spills on your best wedding tablecloth or breaks one of your wedding champagne flutes accidentally. When the latter happened moments later, I was prepared, and thus the party was a sparkling success!

Then there was our Therese bash on October 19, 1997.

And finally there was the Nigerian graduation party to end all graduation parties. Bouncy house, abundant Mexican food from the fabulous Garden Market, and best of all, three wonderful graduates of Thomas Aquinas College with their parents and the siblings who could make it - which included Royalty: the King and Queen of Nigeria, we knew they secretly must be, wearing traditional colorful garb and smiles that eclipsed the sun; the parents of our Nigerian boy whose classmates had raised the $6,000 needed to bring them for this awesome occasion. And God miraculously provided what no one on earth could: the much-sought but oft-denied absolutely necessary visas!

Well, today being the anniversary of Therese's doctorate means that we are near (in this case poised on the Vigil of) World Mission Sunday. Pope Pius XI instituted this annual party in 1926 to support the missions, and just one year later, he who had the privilege of beatifying Sister Therese in 1923 and canonizing Blessed Therese in 1925, now had the joy of proclaiming her co-patron of the missions in 1927, on a par with St. Francis Xavier.

We here at Miss Marcel's Musings just can't get enough of this girl. So it was with awe and delight that we spent this time last year reading and writing about our current Holy Father's apostolic exhortation on our sis. It is full of gems, and after the remark about "It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love" being enough to earn her the Church's Doctorate and make her our teacher, in a sense, "on a par with St. Thomas Aquinas" (quotes are my own - this is not official, just wonderful), right beside that in joy-inducing truth is this passage:

"We would do well to delve more deeply into her message as we commemorate the 150th anniversary of her birth in Alencon (January 2, 1873) and the centenary of her beatification (April 29, 1923). Yet I have not chosen to issue this exhortation on either of those dates, or on her liturgical memorial, so that this message may transcend those celebrations and be taken up as part of the spiritual treasury of the Church."

Zowie!!!!

And now, as we anticipate our next great party, what has Our Holy Father so prophetically done? He has given us as the theme of this year's Mission Sunday a verse from Matthew's gospel that is sharper than a two-edged sword even while it makes our cup overflow! Swords and cups - sounds like a Catholic feast to me! Here is our theme:

"Go and invite everyone to the banquet!"

We are gearing up at the home of Miss Marcel, albeit in fits and starts, to celebrate our happiest moment since our marriage and the birth of our two sons. We are getting ready to welcome a daughter into our family when the adorable FDIL (Future Daughter in Law) becomes the SOS (Spouse of the eldest Son) in the early days of 2025 (Jubilee Year for the whole Church and Centenary of Therese's canonization) . . .

We have the great honor of hosting the wedding, and thus it is - quite accidentally and by the Providence of a very merciful God (you know Him well, I hope) - a sort of "destination wedding" for all those currently living in places less banquet-friendly, less surf and turfy, less sunny-in-winter than we happen to be. (And might I add that we pay a pretty penny in property taxes for the nonetheless unpredictable but generally pleasant weather?)

The truth is we are grateful we live here, we are beyond grateful (uber-grateful) for the impending nuptials of our eldest son and the best girl on earth, and we are hopeful that those invited will be able to attend. As with any such event, FDIL and I would have liked to invite y'all, but the wiser noggins of the Husband (mine) and husband to be (hers) prevailed, explaining that there are natural limits to these things, and as Solzynhenitsyn taught us, "Self-limitation is the key to happiness."

Understandably, however, distance, expense, and the Christmas holidays look to prevent many of our guestlist from attending. FDIL and I then have the reasonable (if not rational) desire to move heaven and earth to bring any potential "no's" into the "yes" camp on the RSVP tally. But this time, even before the menfolk intervene with masculine smarts, we have been realizing that there is a lot of experience, strength, and hope in the kitchy expression, "Let go and let God." Also in the tried and true saying of Our Lord (adapted for our use here) to let their yes mean yes and their no mean no. 

Which brings us to this 22nd chapter of the gospel of St. Matthew:

"And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying:

The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying, 'Tell those who are invited, "See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast."' But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business . . . The king was angry . . . Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding feast is ready . . . Go therefore to the highways and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.'"

For those of us with soft hearts, there's nothing worse than an angry king, and in fact I've left out a few salient verses where the ellipses are . . . but the main point for our purposes is not what's missing, but who's missing. We're so sorry that some can't make it, but the question then arises, do we invite more, or have a smaller party?

Forgive me for my lack of etiquette. I know it usually isn't polite to talk about a party in front of a friend who isn't invited. But on the other hand, in the Catholic circles we are blessed to frequent, the etiquette shifts. It is a truth universally acknowledged, right up there beside "A single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife," that none of us hosting our children's wedding can invite all the beloved friends and even well-wishing bystanders that we would like to invite. There wouldn't be a venue large enough to hold you all!!!

Thus, in my musings today, I come to this remarkable fact:

While I have two brothers and two sons in the eyes of the squinty hearted, my true tally of brothers is, like my true tally of sons, much larger. So we may keep it quite anonymous when I say that yesterday one of my many, many brothers suggested a few changes to the upcoming wedding.

I suppose now is as good a time as any to do my Reveal. 
No, I'm not having another baby, Biblical and exciting though that would be.
So it isn't a question of boy or girl, but rather it's been a question of chemo or no chemo. 
Not that boys are like chemo (well maybe just a little!) but more like God's will is always wonderful, and by the graces coming from all your prayers (really, never underestimate the power of your prayers. As St. Andre said, When you say the Our Father your lips are next to God's ear!) - by the graces coming from all your prayers, I haven't been worried at all about what my cancer treatment will entail.

And we found out a few days ago that it will entail chemo. Which is good, because that will knock down the chance of recurrence a WHOLE LOT and also, because we're now with City of Hope, I look forward to a spacious and well-appointed infusion room with free wifi and nutritious snacks. Before you get too excited (if you're really nutrition conscious) or worried (yes, I did burn my fingers badly on a too-hot Pop-Tart last night, and yet here I am selflessly typing away, so it must not be fatal), let me say that I have seen and even sampled the nutritious snacks, and they manage to find the happy middle between kale salad and Lucky Charms. 

But back to our main narrative.
Due to this chemo-sitch, it looks like the wedding may be less of a fun party for me, and said brother was concerned that perhaps it would be a bad time to host such a lifetime event.

This brother (like all my others) is quite amazing and in his quest for truth, love, and the American dream, he doesn't actually spend a lot of time watching Lifetime (the TV channel) so I don't think he was really aware that this is the PERFECT Lifetime Event!! I think I may even need to write a movie about it, and then Hallmark and LIfetime can enter a bidding war (if they are different entities).

Can't you see me with a colorful turban or perhaps sporting a new mane of auburn tresses (perhaps not my own, but rented for the occasion), and if not feeling well, I could be lying on a chaise longue like La Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni – nee Stanhope of Barchester Towers, carried in by some of my many sons (though not the groom and best man, I think, as they will have other duties)?

I am so relieved that the bride and groom are full of prudence, because ever since they became engaged I've been wanting them to be married already, they are just so perfectly and clearly meant for each other.

Happily, wiser heads than mine have prevailed, and they have the perfect date set for their Two-Become-One day.

Speaking of wiser heads, not to get off topic, but I'm hoping that perhaps the potential side effect of "chemo brain" will do wonders for me. I once knew a fellow (in my extreme youth, say high school age) who had the difficult trait of seeming drunk when he was sober. His best friend used to joke, and there was a lot of truth in this joke, that when the fellow was drunk, he actually had the gift of seeming then sober! And similarly, since I feel like I already have chemo brain (being constantly in need of wiser heads to help with all decisions), I'm hoping the chemo itself might effect a change in my brain to what looks a lot like normal in other people. You can't stop a girl from hoping!

Which brings us back to parties and Therese.

Therese was very big on hope, and this expression of hers that it is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love has so many possible applications.

First off, let's stop worrying that it's all well and good for her to say it, but we're, at least on occasion, fearful and timid as church mice, so how does this help us?

It helps us because THERESE CAN GIVE US HER CONFIDENCE!
She doesn't need it anymore because she is seeing God face to Face (her face snuggled right up to His) - but why let that wealth of confidence go to waste when we can just ask for it?

Dear little Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face,
our sister and our teacher,
please give us your confidence. Fill us up with it to overflowing. 
And then shower us with roses as a sign that you have heard and are answering this prayer and all our prayers.
Also go tell Venerable Tolton to obtain the miracle little Ava needs!
And wake up Marcel to get a miracle to heal Suzie if he wants to advance his cause.
And then, dear sister, please provide for all our other needs, so pressing and so urgent, and even those dear to our heart but less desperate. 
Bless all the missionaries in the world, and plead with the Harvest Master to send out more laborers. Obtain the grace of conversion and intimacy with the Good Shepherd for those who have so far eluded His saving crook.
Show us God's love, and teach us how to invite others to His Banquet.
And help our little banquets be reflections of His so that joy may be born in many hearts, and the peace beyond understanding which Jesus promised may flood the lives of all those we love.

I often hear about weddings to which I'm not invited because we live in a vibrant Catholic college community, and as Peter Deluca (a founder of Thomas Aquinas College) once memorably said, "We didn't realize we weren't founding a college, we were founding a people!"

Dr. Warren Carroll, founder of Christendom College (where we had the great grace to live and work for 14 years) said something similar, that the greatest achievement of Christendom was the multitude of Catholic marriages and families it produced.

The upshot is that when I hear about a wedding (often) that I'm not invited to (more often than not because one can't invite everyone, as mentioned above), I don't take it personally, and I may even be relieved because just as "one" can't invite everyone, so another "one" couldn't manage to go to every wedding, even if invited. Last summer was a personal best - so much so that I've lost count, but I know that back in June I attended two weddings in one day, between April and August my husband and I attended the weddings of three nieces, and all told, I think I was able to make about eleven weddings and had to decline two or three.

I'm feeling, then, a bit like a wedding expert, and I remember after our own (future) bride and groom had attended something like their 3rd friends-wedding in a month, I asked, "So what did we learn?"
It was a privilege to have the opportunity to share in the unique and unrepeatable joyful anticipation of "happily ever after" with so many couples, and an absolute blast to see each wedding with new eyes, wondering what aspects we might want to repeat, if possible, at our own festivities.

When FDIL asked me what wedding customs meant a lot to me (because let's face it, we could multiply traditions until the cows come home and still have a long night ahead), I responded with a clear and (for once) simple answer:

The wedding custom I'm attached to is the one where the couple gets married in the Church with a priest.

And then I really like the custom where the music (for dancing at the reception) isn't too loud and thus doesn't drive everyone over 22 away from the party.

We have the first of those covered, and the second is a dream we are working to attain.
We also have a great caterer (a dear friend who does this professionally), a spectacular choir director (another dear friend and professional who, come to think of it, sang at our wedding too) whose extended family forms the most beautifully angelic choir in the Western hemisphere (which, happily, is where the wedding will take place), and - did I mention this already? - a bride and groom and a priest! Oh, and a wondrous church in which they can marry in the Church!

I guess I'm rambling at this point, but what really makes me smile hugely is this:
My brother kindly suggested (and it was a good suggestion, and I'm grateful for it because it helped me clarify my thoughts) that we could have a very intimate wedding, and that would alleviate the stress of hosting-in-the-midst-of-chemo.

For some, reducing the guest list might be the right move. Just like for others, postponing the wedding might be right. Especially if news was coming back to the bride and groom that due to the location and the time of year, not everyone they hoped to host could make it to sunny southern California because they had appointments with snow-storms (and family) elsewhere.

For us? The conversation clarified me like butter. And then along comes dear Pope Francis and solidifies me into a soft and salty useful stick (I'm trying to stick with one metaphor here!) . . .

"Go and invite everyone to the banquet!"

Forgive me again if you don't receive your invitation, all ten of you who read this outpouring of my happy heart. Consider this your spiritual invitation to pray with us in January (we'll leave the date out so you can spend the whole month in union of prayer with us!) and celebrate the marriage with us wherever you are. All it takes is a glass of any liquid for a toast, and a hearty Cheers!

I really can't believe how good God is to us, and yet I do.
Our eldest son is 34 and has just this year found his help-mate and fullness of his vocation.
If you who read this now are unsure what God has in store for you, please remember to borrow Therese's confidence, because God is so good, He will hear your prayers and give you the mission He has planned for you with and among the people He has chosen for you.

It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love!

"If all weak and imperfect souls felt what the least of souls feels - that is, the soul of Your little Therese - not one would despair of reaching the summit of the mount of love. Jesus does not demand great actions from us, but simply surrender and gratitude." - St. Therese (from Story of a Soul)

Draw me, we will run!!!

P.S. October 19, which when it falls on a Sunday is World Mission Sunday, is also now in the new calendar the feast of the North American Martyrs, those heroic French Jesuits we mentioned as intercessors in our previous post. Here is an article on them by another Jesuit hero, Servant of God Father John Hardon. May the great Jesuits of yore pray for those who lead and convert us now.

Saints John de Brebeuf, Isaac Jogues, Anthony Daniel, Gabriel Lalemant, Charles Garnier, Noel Chabanel, Rene Goupil and John Lalande, pray for us!!!

"Truth exists. The Incarnation happened." - Dr. Warren Carroll

"Miracles exist. The sun danced at Fatima." - Miss Marcel

He asked her “Who are you?” She replied, “I am Teresa of Jesus. And who are you?” To which the child responded, “I am Jesus of Teresa."

*  *  *

Wouldn't you like to obtain today (or next week, or better yet last week) at least a hundred miracles?

This past Sunday I had the joy of speaking to about 80 confirmation students, and I asked them if they would like to SEE a miracle - they all would! - and if any would like to have a miracle (for themselves or someone they loved) - and many would like that too. I feel just the same!

How astounding that 107 years ago on October 13, 1917 there was a miracle in Fatima, Portugal that was seen and experienced by 70,000 people!

How were there 70,000 witnesses? Well, Our Lady had foretold the miracle to the three little shepherds of Fatima, the children she had been appearing to and who had asked her for a sign to show the grown ups it was true. Then thanks to the faith - as well as the unbelief - of the Portuguese people, thousands upon thousands trekked to the spot in October on the appointed 13th day.

I say thanks to their faith because that brought tens of thousands through terrible weather to the spot where Our Lady was appearing . . . and I say thanks to their unbelief, because some of that 70,000 lucky enough to witness the Miracle of the Sun had come to mock and deride . . .

Yet even the most secular and atheistic newspapers of the time, whose journalists had indeed gone to mock the spectacle (which they fully expected to be lots of people and no miracle) witnessed the event - or experienced it, would be a better word - and then wrote about the indisputable Miracle of the Sun which not only spun in the sky and shot out glorious colors of bright lights but also plummeted toward the crowds, frightening even the most hardened atheists among them into a posture on their knees crying out to God for mercy.

If any were determined or inclined or simply tempted to deny the miracle when the sun then returned to its normal place and appearance high overhead, they were confronted with the extra miracle that after hours of torrential rains, the mud, flooding, and puddles as well as the drenched clothing of the 70,000 observers were dry as the desert after the 10 minute spinning-sun event.

What I love is that even our own mocking and deriding newspapers are sometimes forced into admitting the truth of history . . . On November 18, 1951, thirty-four years later, the New York Times had an article under this headline:

PHOTOGRAPHS HELD PROOF OF MIRACLE; Vatican Newspaper Shows Pictures of Sun Dipping in Portugal in 1917 Vision of Virgin

​
One would like to say the result was universal conversion, but we're a stiff necked people, we are!

Nonetheless, what a beautiful gift and proof of the love of Our Lady, who wanted us to know we could believe she was, by God's designs, not only maternal but also powerful. Which is why we are delighted to begin the second half of our latest double novena with redoubled confidence and hope in Heaven's plan for us and the miracles ahead.

Before I forget, which I'm apt to instantly do, let me mention one of the miracles we've recently been praying for and would like to share with you so that you can join us . . .

Do you remember Leonardo DeFilippis? No, not the Renaissance inventor and painter, and no, not the Ninja Turtle, and no, not even the actor in Titanic. We're talking about the marvelous Catholic Leonardo who (from a bio we found online) "after years as a Shakespearean actor . . .embarked on a spiritual journey that led him to found a Catholic theater company, Saint Luke Productions, in 1980. Millions throughout the US, Canada, and Europe have seen his work as an actor, producer, and film director. Performance venues . . . have included churches, major theaters, civic centers, penitentiaries, schools, and cloistered convents. Leonardo also performed at World Youth Day in Denver and Rome. . .

"One of his most ambitious projects was the direction, production, and distribution of the feature film Thérèse. This was the first motion picture distributed solely by an independent Catholic film company . . . He continues to tour with Vianney and Maximilian: Saint of Auschwitz. His most recent drama, Tolton: From Slave to Priest, tells the remarkable story of America's first Black priest.

"On August 6, 1983, the Feast of the Transfiguration, Leonardo married his beloved wife Patti. They have been blessed with seven children and reside in Washington State."

HERE is a wonderful interview he did with Mother of Divine Grace (MODG) school. (Click on this bold "HERE" to read it.)

And now that you know who our Leonardo is, let me tell you about the miracle he's asking us to join him in obtaining. From a letter he wrote to a mutual friend:

"I want to ask for your fervent prayers. An MRI has revealed that our granddaughter Ava has an inoperable tumor in the back of her brain. It will only get worse that we know so far, and there is no cure for it . . . So we ask for your prayers that God will use Venerable Father Augustus Tolton to bring about a miracle. Little Ava is only 4 years old. Thanks for your prayers."

Here is the prayer to Father Tolton:

Father in Heaven, Father Tolton’s suffering service sheds light upon our sorrows; we see them through the prism of your Son’s passion and death. If it be your Will, O God, glorify your servant, Father Tolton, by granting the favor I now request through his intercession (Ava’s healing) so that all may know the goodness of this priest whose memory looms large in the Church he loved.

Complete what you have begun in us that we might work for the fulfillment of your kingdom. Not to us the glory, but glory to you O God, through Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord; Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are our God, living and reigning forever and ever. Amen

And if you don't print it out, I'm sure some days you might just say, "Fr. Tolton, intercede to heal Ava please!" and that works too!

Our plan was to start the second half of our double novena yesterday, and we may be a day late and a dollar short, but we're ready!

Actually, this post did go up yesterday, and I was only a minute late (not a day), pressing "publish" at 12:01. It turns out that, by golly, the system we have set up works! If I publish by noon, the day's work goes out to subscribers a few minutes later. But alas, if I publish at 12:01, those who subscribe (that is, sign up to automatically get Miss Marcel's Musings by using the Subscribe button on the bottom of the page on a phone or on the right sidebar on a computer) will not receive the email until the next day. 

The good news is we officially started the second half of our double novena yesterday. The better news is that this morning we have been able to add in the exciting news that it is at last THE FEAST OF OUR HOLY MOTHER, ST. TERESA OF JESUS OF AVILA!!!!

For Carmelites, this is even a solemnity, and I figure that at Miss Marcel's Musings we are all at least honorary Carmelites because of Marcel's great desire to be one (a Carmelite), not to mention that his dearest sister and ours, St. Therese of the Child Jesus of Lisieux (we have to mention all these names to try to prevent confusion) aka The Little Flower, is a Carmelite. So happy solemnity, and may our holy mother join our littlest sister and brother in showering you with roses galore! That means miracles too!

In our latest  double novena, the first 9 days extended from October 5, feast of St. Faustina and Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos to October 13, this past Sunday on the anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima,

Now the second half of this double novena started yesterday on the feast of Pope Saint Callistus, also the Vigil of our Holy Mother St. Teresa of Jesus of Avila, and goes to that day of days, October 22, feast of our beloved Papa, St. John Paul II.

Don't worry if you missed yesterday due to circumstances beyond your control. In fact, part of our official policy is to repeat as often as possible the words of Our Lord, Our Lady, Our Holy Mother Teresa, and my husband (sometimes known as The Wizard because he's REALLY smart, so you can trust him too, I promise) - 

Don't worry about anything!!!

If you want exact quotes, I refer you to the gospel of John, Chapter 14; the words of Our Lady of Guadalupe to St Juanito Diego and to us; the words of St. Teresa's bookmark, the book of Conversations (with Jesus, Mary, and St. Therese) by Marcel Van, and . . . well, it's hard to give you a reference for my husband's repetition of these words, but let's just say if you were a fly on the wall of our homes for the past 36 years, you would have heard "Don't worry about anything" on a nearly daily basis! Praise God for His infinite kindness as expressed through the words I need to hear endlessly!

So yes, please don't worry if you are late to the party, which in fact is renewed each day. And if you are late to the novena, no worries there either, we've got your back.

I've decided it would be wonderful to simply pray for all 70,000 of our very specific intentions, in honor of the spectators of the Miracle of the Sun! But rather than name them all (I am generously including yours in the 70,000 but without your explicit permission, I'd rather not name them in case you feel they're too personal to share . . .), let's order them as follows:

1. For Ava, for a complete miraculous healing of her brain tumor, and for an awesome long life of sanctity to follow, all through the intercession of Venerable Fr. Augustus Tolton.

2. For each and every one of our personal intentions, for ourselves, our loved ones, those who have asked our prayers, those for whom we've promised to pray, and those who need our prayers - that many miracles will flow from the largesse of our awesome God through the intercession of our brother Marcel Van, our sister St. Therese, our brother Venerable Tolton, and through the kind intercession also of the saints whose feasts began yesterday and go to October 22nd - and they owe me one, because it was precisely my desire to include all these names of our brothers and sisters that made my post publishing a literal minute too late! -

​St. Callistus, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, St. Hedwig, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Luke and Dr. Conrad Baars, St. Peter of Alcantara, St. Jean de Brebeuf, St. Isaac Jogues, St. John de Lalande, St. Charles Garnier, St. Rene Guipil, St. Anthony Daniel, St. Gabriel Lalemant, and St. Noel Chabanel (North American martyrs), St. Maria Bertille Boscardin, Blessed Daudi Okello and Blessed Jildo Irwa (Ugandan martyrs), St. Paul of the Cross, Blessed Karl of Austria, St Celine (mother of St. Remigius), St. Mary Salome (one of the three Marys at the foot of the Cross), and St. Pope John Paul II, pray and intercede for us with our adorable little Jesus, our infinitely merciful Heavenly Father, and the Holy Spirit of Love!

3. Our final intention is that through these same Saints, and especially through the intercession of our Holy Father John Paul II, with the added intercession and assistance of Padre Pio and Don Dolindo, we might love the Rosary (and our Blessed Mother) as much as they did, and in fact we ask "a double portion of their spirit" from the Saints who have loved the Rosary and Our Lady the most!

We have the prayer above to Fr. Tolton for Ava (as well as any intentions you'd like to commend to him), and now in honor of our Holy Mother Teresa, here is another possible prayer for the novena. It's more of a bit of advice and a meditation, an expansion of that wisdom above, "Don't worry about anything," but I think it works well as a way to lead us to expect miracles and become saints. Here is her bookmark:

​Let nothing disturb you;
Let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing.
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Nothing is wanting to him who possesses God.
God alone suffices.

Nada te turbe;
nada te espente;
todo se pasa;
Dios no se muda.
La paciencia Todo lo alcanxa.
Quien a Dios tiene,
nada le falta.
Solo dios basta.

And finally, I've been enjoying the simple prayer that St. Faustina taught us (that Jesus taught her):

Jesus, I trust in You!

and the prayer Jesus taught Marcel:

Little Jesus, I love You a lot!

​
We are very big here on liberty of the spirit in prayer, or as our Holy Mother said regarding prayer and union with God: "One must walk this road in freedom." Feel free then, please, to take any one of these or another prayer for your daily novena prayer, and take them all if you like, but only if it brings peace. 

​Draw me, we will run!

P.S. If you want to keep up with Ava's miracle, you will find the latest updates on these two sites:

Caring Bridge site for Ava

​GoFundMe site for Ava

P.P.S. We happen to have an extra copy of Marcel's Conversations at our house. (This is besides my original, my second copy, my husband's copy, and the copy I "crafted" into several smaller volumes for easy purse-fit and transport.) That means a feast day prize for someone who would like a copy of the book that perhaps repeats "Don't worry about anything" just a little less than the Bible does but more than any other book I know!

If you would like to win this book, contact me (at the "contact" button on this page) and it is yours! I only have one extra copy, but if there is more than one reader here who contacts me for it, I'll see what I can do about getting more. I hate to think any of you  are deprived of the greatest book on earth (after the Holy Scriptures and the Summa!) . . . and it's a feast, so we need gifts!

If you can't find the "contact" button or are shy or already have your own 3 copies of Conversations, might I suggest a cupcake, a hot mug of tea, a latte, or a glass of wine? There's no accounting for tastes, but the point is to rejoice and feast because you now have another mom in Heaven! 

St. Teresa of Jesus, our holy mother and beloved friend of Jesus, teach us to speak to Him always, and give Him a big, loud, smacking kiss for us today!

"How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers." - Mother Teresa

And we here at Miss Marcel's Musings would like to add: How could there be too many novenas?

I suppose if you weren't enjoying them anymore, there might be too many novenas. But as to feasts, saints, and intentions, since these are never ending, why limit our prayers? Prayer is conversation, speaking our mind and heart to those we know love us, or those we hope love us, or those we are simply happy to love from our side - and praise God, this love is never unrequited when we involve the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of Love . . .

And thus we come to a marvelous double feast today which seems to Marcel and Miss Marcel to call for a super fun, super grace filled double novena.

Today is the feast of St. Faustina and the feast of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos. The first acted as one of Jesus' little secretaries to give us the message of Divine Mercy, and the second was a great missionary in the United States who LOVES to work miracles. He made a habit of allowing God's power to flow through him while he lived on earth, and now that he's in Heaven, FX is still going strong in the wonder-working department.

And guess what? I've counted and re-counted, and it looks to me like if we start a novena today in honor of these two dear ones who would like to become good friends of ours, we will end on October 13, the day of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima!

Okay, and then - again I'm hoping my counting has not been in vain - if we then take a deep breath and begin the second part of our double novena on October 14, that means we'll begin on the feast of St. Callistus, pope and martyr, we will end on the feast of another Holy Father, the one we like to call Our Holy Father: Pope St. John Paul the Second!

There's also a double intention that goes with our novena. I've given it the old college try, and you who read here have surely been persevering in your prayers, but to be honest, I'm getting tired of praying for me! God has been answering our prayers with such kind mercy that I'd really like to share the abundance of His love and turn our attention to those children Mother Teresa mentioned at the outset.

Today is, in fact, the anniversary of the baptism of my second son. And when we get, in about 18 days (hence the double nine or a double novena) to the feast of St. JPII, that will be the day after the baptism of my FDIL (Future Daughter in Law!), and the day OF her First Holy Communion. 

In a striking turn of events which illustrated for all eternity God's sense of humor and fun, my second child (the one who was baptized 22 years ago today) was born twelve and a half years after my first child (the son who is happily offering us our FDIL). This meant that on this day, son #1 got to be the altar boy serving our Padre as he baptized son #2. What a fabulous trick God played on us, answering the prayers of So Many friends and relatives (and ultimately my mom and Aunt Joan's pilgrimage-to-Lisieux-request to St. Therese to give us another child) in such a perfectly timed but supremely unusual manner. . .

So. Some of you have kids. Some of you are kids! Some of you want kids. Some of you want help with the kids that our Heavenly Father has foisted on you! It's all grace, and these are all the stuff of special intentions, so let's do this together! Let's pray these back to back novenas for the children.

And since this is a double novena, I'll make it a double intention:

As well as praying for the children, let's pray for peace. Peace in our homes and hearts, peace in the hearts of all children, and peace in the world in which these children live.

First we'll have a Scripture quote and a couple of quotes from today's saints to edify and inspire us, then we'll suggest some possible prayers for the novenas (all optional to be used in the "liberty of spirit" recommended so convincingly in A Retreat for Lay People by our dear friend Monsignor Ronald Knox).

From the Blessed Trinity, as quoted by the prophet Isaiah:

"They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity,
for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord, and their children with them.
Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear." (Isaiah 65:23-24)

From St. Faustina:

"The heat is so intense today that it is difficult to bear. We are all thirsting for rain and still it does not come. For several days the sky has been overcast, but there is no rain. When I looked at the plants, thirsting for the rain, I was moved with pity, and I decided to say the chaplet until the Lord would send us rain. Before supper, the sky covered over with clouds, and a heavy rain fell of the earth. I had been saying this prayer without interruption for three hours. And the Lord let me know that everything can be obtained by means of this prayer." (May 22, 1937; Divine Mercy in My Soul, Diary of St. Faustina)

From Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, C.Ss.R. (those letters mean Redemptorist, by the way, and that makes Blessed FX our dear brother because he is Marcel's brother in the order founded by our father St. Alphonsus Ligouri!):

"But often in the midst of this work I do something dumb and everything goes topsy-turvy. Nothing astonishes me more than the extent of the patience which the dear Lord displays in my regard. He even elevates me before the people and showers his benefits upon me . . ." (from a letter quoted in his biography, Cheerful Ascetic, as re-quoted in Magnificat, October 5, 2024)

*    *    *

How magnificent! How spectacular! How truly beyond our wildest dreams is this infinite love of God and its revelation in the words of Scripture and the saints!

First off, we have Isaiah reassuring us with God's own reassurance: 
Our dear Father, our brother, best friend, spouse of our souls and True Love Jesus, and the Holy Spirit Who is the love of the Father and the Son given to live in us - this Blessed and adorable Trinity says, 
"Before they call, I will answer."

Wow! If you are getting tired of novenas, no worries! God is answering them before we even begin! But just to remind ourselves that He has listened, we might give it a shot (praying each day) so that we don't forget - which I for one do instantly forget - WE ARE CHERISHED AND LOVED, and just as we want so many good things for our children (and insofar as we are children, which Jesus urges us to be in order to enter His Kingdom, we want so many good things for ourselves too), so Almighty God, our true Father, wants even more for our children and all children.

Then we get Faustina slipping in this business about the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Jesus told her it would obtain anything, and here she is proving Him, once again, right as rain! In case you are a little OCD (either compulsive, or Discalced Carmelite - either one works here), don't be afraid to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet just once and call it a day, or even abbreviate it to "Jesus, I trust in You!" because He doesn't mind the quick and simple prayers. I think that St. Faustina's three hours of uninterrupted chaplets serve to remind us to persevere in prayer, and that's what we're hoping to do in our double novena, but again, liberty of the spirit. St. Teresa of Jesus of Avila, our holy mother in Carmel (if not in compulsivity) so beautifully teaches, "Everyone must walk this path of prayer in freedom."

And what about Blessed Francis X. Seelos? Ah, how it makes my heart relax into a steady and safe beat when I hear the saints talk about how dumb they can be too! They weren't always perfect, and perhaps they were never perfect, and most importantly, they made mistakes just like we do! No need to be discouraged - this is another characteristic of childhood, and spiritual childhood fails in nothing when it captures this charming feature of the little ones we so strive to be before Our Lord. 

Here is St. Therese's take on the topic of mistakes from Her Last Conversations (or in this edition I'm quoting from, Novissima Verba):

Her sister writes: I spoke to her of my imperfections. She said to me:

"It happens to me often enough also to fail thus, but I am never astonished at it. I am not always able to put aside the nothings of earth as promptly as I could wish: for example, I am tempted to feel disquieted over some silly thing I had said or done. Then, I i enter into myself, and say: 'Alas, I am once more at the first step as before!' But this I say in great peace, without sadness. It is so sweet to feel oneself to be little and weak." (July 5, 1897)

If you wonder why, contrary to our common experience, our crazy sister Therese finds it so sweet to feel little and weak, I have a quick answer:

Because when we feel little and weak we can abandon ourselves, like the children we are, into the care of our Heavenly Father and our Mother Mary. We can't do it, they can, let's let them!

So here are my suggestions for (optional) prayers for our double novena:

1. Divine Mercy Chaplet - I've been falling down on this job lately, which isn't making me feel guilty, just eager to give it a shot. I think I might try this for the next 18 days, especially since our novenas will end on the day of Our Fearless Leader who gave us the Divine Mercy chaplet, feast, and image with full papal approval!

2. Or if I find myself at the end of the day (or even in the middle) with not a focused thought in my head and not a spark of energy to tackle a whole chaplet, maybe I'll try a decade, or even "Jesus I trust in You!" which phrase He loves to hear almost as much as "Jesus, I love You a lot!"

And since we're heading toward a special day of Our Lady on October 13 and then a special day of one of her specialist servants and sons, JPII after that on October 22, how about I give another double option - the favorite prayer to Our Lady for friends, and Our Holy Father's Marian mantra. And when I say "another double option" I mean these are ALL just options - and for us who tend to scrupulosity, in the spirit of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, his father founder and our loving guide St. Alphonsus, and Jesus Himself (all tenderness, gentleness, and indulgence), I mean to say we can choose just one of these options, and not feel guilty a single bit! Remember, we're nuts enough to keep multiplying novenas . . . no need to make them burdensome or painful! So - reversing the order and giving you the mantra first:

3. Totus Tuus!
 
or in our loose translation: 

4. I am all yours, Mother Mary, and all that I have is yours!

5. Blessed Mother of those whose names you can read in my heart, watch over them with every care. Make their way easy and their labors fruitful. Dry their tears if they weep; sanctify their joys; raise their courage if they weaken; restore their hope if they lose heart, their health if they be ill, truth if they err, and repentance if they fall. Amen. 

Happy feasting, and may the angels surround you and all the other children we're praying for!

Draw me, we will run!

HAPPY FEAST OF OUR LITTLE SISTER ST. THERESE!!!!!

If you're just joining us - or if you feel like you've been here forever - whether you're the worker who woke at dawn or the one who slept in til noon, welcome and happy feast!

We hold Jesus to His promises here, and today we're planning on a feast day celebration (an octave, or a triduum at least)  to reward us above anything we can ask . . .  but first we need to ask, according to the wishes of our dear brother, best friend, and the Spouse of our souls. I don't mean we have to ask what He wants us to ask, but simply that He wants us to ask, and the bigger the requests the better so our True Love can show off His love for us. Let's get to it, then, and finish our novena to St. Therese. We've been remembering all your intentions - even the ones you've forgotten! - so no worries, let's just pray. 

O Little Therese of the Child Jesus
Please pick for me a rose from the heavenly garden
and send it to me as a message of love.

O Little Flower of Jesus,
please ask God to grant the favors
I now place with confidence in your hands:
for Marcel to obtain a miracle for Suzie,
for us all to become great saints,
and for the countless other miracles we need
for ourselves, for those we love, and for the whole wide world.

St. Therese, help us to always believe as you did,
in God’s great love for us,
so that we may imitate your “Little Way” each day.
Amen.

And now for a word from our sponsor:

I feel my mission is about to begin; my mission of making others love God as I love Him: of giving them my Little Way. I shall send down a shower of roses. I want to spend my heaven in doing good on earth.  - St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, big sister of little Marcel Van

We have a lot of feasting to do, so I'm going to get down to business and offer a few roses from our sister Therese on this opening day of her festivities, and then send you on your little way. Tomorrow, October 2nd, is the feast of the guardian angels (thank you, dear friends!), and then the next day is Therese's feast again. My impression is that Holy Mother Church gave us two liturgical calendars (the old and new) so we could feast to our hearts' content. Cupcakes, anyone? Roses? Miracles?

On the miracle front:

This year has been a year of miracles for sure. I wish I could have a cup of tea with each of you and just listen to the litany of miracles you could recite for me, and if you weren't seeing them, I would love to laughingly point them out.

I can't wait till Heaven!

But then again, the point of the miracle we've been asking for lately is precisely to keep me from Heaven, or rather, in the words of St. Catherine of Siena which a dear friend now has as her motto under her signature (and so happily I get to read it frequently), since "All the way to Heaven is Heaven," we've been asking that I stay on this little way of Heaven with y'all, and that's precisely what's been happening.

I went to City of Hope! And guess what? It was really and truly, if not a city (since I went to the satellite office in South Pasadena), at least a medical building FILLED WITH HOPE!

I met the wonderful Dr. Paz (Dr. Peace, which makes me feel like I'm in a Trollope novel), and wow did he do his job well. He began with a friendly, "What can I do for you?" and before he ended with a kind and sincere, "Did I answer all your questions?" he ordered more tests and told me the words every blonde (and even those of us with recent highlights) wants to here: "There's a good chance you won't have to do chemo."

Hooray for Marcel and all the little miracles he and Therese procure to keep us from losing our minds and sometimes even from losing our hair!

I have been keeping up with a few of you in terms of the miracles we're asking on your behalf, and let me tell you, Heaven seems stingy (that's stinge-ee) lately, but I think we must be looking at it all wrong. I can't remember if I told the joke here recently, but I heard it in the Reagan movie and it sums up this life on earth. Our Holy Mother Teresa of Jesus of Avila said it this way after falling off the back of a cart (how they rode in the old days) and into the mud: "No wonder You have so few friends, if this is how you treat them!"

Reagan's words, the punchline of a joke, were from the mouth of a little boy whose father found him digging in a pile of manure on Christmas morning. When asked what he was doing, the boy replied, "I know there's a pony in here somewhere!" 

Sheesh, it's so true! When Mary and Joseph were the perfect parents of Jesus, what did the little imp do but make them search 3 days to find them in His Father's house?! And now when we're trying so hard to be what He wants us to be, or at least doing what He told us to and ASKING so we can RECEIVE, what does He do but hide, and sometimes it seems like He's hiding in a pile of manure, or at least dumping us in a mud puddle before He offers us a hand to lift us out.

Sorry for the vivid images that are so unfeastlike, but one of Therese's mysterious (to me) sayings, taken from her counsels to and reminiscences of her novices, goes like this:

"Do you know my Sundays and feastdays? They are the days when the good God tries me the most."

I don't know if she means that when God tries her the most, that's a feast day for her - and if that's what she meant I find it singularly unhelpful. Just for the record, I like a feast to be a feast and, I've said it before, I definitely like a kiss to be a kiss. Mother Teresa (and if you're young, that's St. Teresa of Calcutta to you, but some of us have photos with her, and we like to call her Mother, hahahaha).

As I was saying, Mother Teresa spread this terrible rumor that suffering is a kiss of Jesus. Can we just reframe that? I don't like to overquote Myth Busters, but let me just reject her reality here and substitute my own. A kiss is something delightful. A kiss is the symbol and reality used by God in Scripture (His love letters to us) and in life to express affection, sweetness, joy, and love. Let's not ruin that with this whole suffering business!

I do understand that suffering is inevitable. I've been in 12 step groups where some have said, "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional." I disagree. It seems to me that pain and suffering both happen, just as it seems to me that God has made us for everlasting joy with Him in Heaven, and He's also intended for that Heaven to begin on earth. "All the way to Heaven is Heaven" comes from another Doctor of the Church, and since we can have Jesus with us - we do have Jesus with us - on earth, on the way to Heaven, so we have Him who is Heaven with us now, and so we have Heaven now.

And suffering? Well, darn if God didn't give us free will, and that does tend to get us into trouble. We - I use the royal we of the children of God - made a pretty silly decision in The Garden, and we're still paying for it. But the glorious Truth is that the Second Person of the Trinity became incarnate, He took on flesh, so that He could pay for us, and ever since then things have been much better. I like to look at it according to the sage advice God gave us through His consoling prophet, Isaiah:

Behold, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?—Isaiah 43:19
To get back to St. Therese, wonderfully enough Pope Pius XI who beatified and canonized her and called her the star of his pontificate (not just the rock star, but the guiding star) had a cute nickname for her. He called her "Omen Novum" and it's on a book she's holding in the huge statue of her that you pass as you walk (or drive) to the her Basilica in Lisieux. Shall we go see it together someday? My future daughter in law (talk about miracles of grace!) will be working at a wonderful Catholic pilgrimage company, and I bet we can set something up. Ah, Lisieux! Ah, Therese! Why are you an "Omen Novum"? What in the world did Pius mean?

It was in a speech the day after her canonization in the spring of 1925 that he coined the phrase, and he was saying she was a New Omen, a new sign of God's love for us, and a portent of His future gifts and graces. Having seen how many roses she had already sent - miracles, favors, and actual roses, thousands of which festooned St. Peter's for the canonization, and some of which had fallen at his feet after the homily - it wasn't a big prophecy for him to predict she'd keep sending them! But more than her miracles of healing, reconciliation, conversion, and so on, there is The Miracle of her Little Way. 

I never tire of repeating the story about her sister Celine who was chastised in the process of the Process. The Church officials interviewing and taking depositions from those who knew Therese were asking Celine why she thought Therese should be declared a saint. When Celine said it was so her Little Way of Spiritual Childhood could be shared with the whole world, they got exceedingly snippy and told her to STOP, cease, and desist such talk of a "new way" because that was exactly the kind of thing that sunk a cause. Celine, that "salad with vinegar" as Therese called her, snapped back, "Well then don't canonize her! If I can't talk about her Little Way, there's no point in talking about her at all!" My translation here is loose, but that was the gist of it.

Celine later said that the happiest day of her life - more so than Therese's beatification day or canonization day - was when Pope Benedict XV proclaimed Therese's heroic virtues and in his allocutio he offered her Little Way to the whole world!

I think she must have loved this "Omen Novum" bit too, then, because by this nickname Pope Pius XI again proposed her Little Way. In his speech he called her, "A new omen, a Word of God in our time." As our Heavenly Father reveals to us, "Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" (Isaiah 43: 18-19) He even continues, "I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself, that they might declare my praise."

Sometimes I object to calling this life a valley of tears because when I was young I misunderstood and thought that meant I ought to resign myself to unhappiness.

Not so! Might I say that the cross is inevitable (by God's mysterious design), but unhappiness is optional? Yes, it is so often a wilderness or a desert where we find ourselves. Even a dark alley! But the good news is that God is there - He is here, with us - and He knows the way out of that dark alley, He knows where the path out of the wilderness is, He knows how to keep us on a straight track leading out of the desert instead of in circles . . . but even while we are in the desert, the wilderness, dark valley, He makes it a place of springs and delicious fruits. 

So, where was I?
Yep, dilly dallying and shilly shallying so as to avoid tallying up our miracles.
Miracle of complete healing from cancer for me?
Well, no, not yet, but I'm having so much fun that I feel a little guilty asking you to pray for me!
Or maybe I should put it this way:
Your prayers are so incredibly powerful that I can only see this as a time of blessings beyond imagining. Truly. 

As for the complete healings and miraculous restorations I've been praying for right back atcha, well, those are equally elusive and equally ongoing . . . Without going into details, I'll just say at last count I am praying for - hahaha, I don't have all day, and neither do you! I was going to count up how many miracles I'm praying for, and then I started and realized we'd never end!

Here it is, my miracle story for today. Well, let's make that two miracle stories:

1. We prayed for my dear and so dear father in law Paul for 0ver 60 years, that he would return to the sacraments and the Church. Let me clarify that the photo at the top is of me and taken in the last year, so I am (hopefully clearly) not over 60 quite yet (but golly, I'm getting close). But my mother in law prayed for Paul from the time she met him, I'm guessing, because they fell in love pretty instantly and she was a devout Catholic and he was fallen away. When their kids came along, they started praying because they knew and loved their parents first, and God a close second, and they wanted for their daddy what they had by the grace of God and the love of their mom. Then when friends, spouses, grandkids, etc., came along, we all prayed too. Who didn't love this man, and who didn't, by definition, want everything good for him - the chief of which was the grace of God and the beautiful sacramental life of the Church? And then (let's make it sound sudden, and it kind of was) on April 24, 2021, the Vigil of Good Shepherd Sunday, Paul Harold Andres said yes to Fr. Tom who had brought the sacraments to his sickbed. He received anointing and absolution, in the middle of which his beloved and so faithful, loving wife said aloud in her awe and joy, "WOW!" and at the end of which, as the priest was leaving, Paul said with his engaging smile and typical charm, "God bless you, Father!"

2. After seeing a good doctor and a bad doctor (God bless them both), I have found not only A FABULOUS DOCTOR but also a whole CITY of them. This is truly a miracle because if the bad doctor, we'll call him Dr. B, had exhibited just the tiniest bit more bedside manner and not sent me on my way with instructions to self-insert a port (okay, that's an exaggeration, but not by much!), we would now be in an infusion room for chemo I may not even need! Is this an indictment of the medical profession! NO WAY JOSE! (I'm not good at inserting accent marks in blog posts, so please read that as no way hoe-zay!)

As I've said before, I love doctors, nurses, hospitals, etc.
God just needed to remind me that, as Therese herself liked to say, "Everything is a grace."
This means that when she loved God her whole life without committing a mortal sin, that made her no better than Magdalene but simply covered with preventative grace, like the child whose father doesn't let go of her hand, and thus she is kept from running out into the street and getting hurt by oncoming traffic. 

So in my case, I have been showered with wonderful doctors in my life, starting with my dad and Uncle Mike, moving on to cousins, a brother, nephews, and that's not to mention all their friends and colleagues. And most of all, the great doctors who have not been relatives and only became friends after they treated me and those I love with the utmost kindness and compassion and professional expertise. And don't get me started on the nurses! What a profession and procession of angels!

It was good, then, for me to be reminded that no field is exempt from The Fall, and poor Dr. B gains my prayers but not my confidence.

Which brings us back to Therese!
"It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love!"
Let that be our byword, our watchword, our mantra!

Why is it nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love?
Because God is Love, and He loves us.
When an animal has been hurt, it hides away and licks its wounds. (Okay, this is good. Sometimes I bet there are animals that have been hurt and so they lash out and try to hurt back! Let's stay away from those ones, poor things!)
We have been hurt - sometimes we hurt ourselves - and our tendency is to hide away. You can see it in the beginning of the book of Genesis. It's a very old story, a very old history.

And yet what is God's attitude?
He is Love, and He loves us.
He comes looking for us, and like the Good Samaritan, He binds up our wounds.
Here we are, crouching in a corner or hiding under the covers, hoping to be left alone to cry or moan.

Therese is a new word of God for us, and that word is CONFIDENCE, that word is LOVE. 

Little Therese, we are so bad at confidence. Please give us yours. You don't need it anymore - you see Face to face what you believed on earth, what you taught and lived with so much hope. Give us your hope, give us your trust, give us your confidence in the good and merciful God who loves us without limit, who loves us exactly as we are right now. Wake up Marcel and little Jesus. They are asleep on Mary's lap, but they need to wake up and come quickly to our aid. You were a bossy little girl Therese, and when asked what you would choose, you chose all! Choose all for us and bring that basket of miracles near so we can feel them pouring over our heads and into our hearts and the hearts of all those we love, all who have asked for our prayers, all we have promised to pray for, and all who need our prayers. Thanks, sis!

Draw me, we will RUN!!!

BONUS ROSE FOR THE FEAST:

Last week I had the joy of speaking with Dr. Marcus Peters on the Catholic radio show "Ave Maria in the Afternoon." We talked about the similarities between Padre Pio and St. Therese and now there is a link to our 10 minute convo:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3mgvylWUJkk6GeypmEvz9O?si=vZuCpDLxQk-J7JZnrXN-PA

The highlights for me were the amazing pronunciation by the host of the name "Padre Pio" the first time he introduces the topic . . . and his first question to me: about whether my son Joseph was at Ave Maria . . . it turns out they were classmates in Theology Grad School!

It was fun to be on the radio, and fun that somehow my future daughter-in-law was the only one who could figure out how to hear it live as my husband drove me to a follow up appointment and I chatted away! May St. Therese, Padre Pio, and our guardian angels help us always to use this amazing modern technology to glorify God, Who is so very, very good to us!

Also I love that I couldn't hear the closing music warning me to wrap it up, and as a consequence I talked to the very last possible moment, which allowed me to end on Therese's invitation that we, too, ask Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament to remain in us as in a tabernacle.

If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend Something New with St. Therese: Her Eucharistic Miracle. Our friends at amazon will get it to you instantly on a kindle or computer or phone (and I think you must have one if you're reading this now!) if you click HERE, and they'll get it to you almost instantly in 3-D, that is, as a paperback book, if you click HERE. Thanks again to Mimi, our production designer and so much more, for creating the gorgeous cover, which boasts Therese as sacristan from a photo by Celine, but in this version in charcoal by Celine. This charcoal rendition was their oldest sister Marie of the Sacred Heart's favorite image of Therese, and she kept it in her cell until her own entry to Heaven decades after Therese had flown the coop. Enjoy!