Are you ready for the feast of St. Joseph? This year we had an extra day, since that wonderful happy date of March 19th fell on the 4th Sunday of Lent, and so Holy Mother Church liturgically transferred the solemnity to March 20th . . . though it's hard not to then simply celebrate our dear father St. Joseph on both days!

You may have been praying away, preparing by a traditional novena, or you may have made it a little novena, forgetting some days, or you may be saying "oops!" right now. That last especially would make you ready to dive into our novena, but you're more than welcome to pray it in addition to yours even if you've been very together! Here at MIss Marcel's Musings, we like to end novenas on the actual feast day, and we LOVE St. Joseph. Consequently we've been praying to him for days and days and it's unlikely we'll stop after today  - and all your intentions are included! We find it easy as pie because God our Heavenly Father wants to give us so many things, and He loves to give them through the request of dear St. Joseph who was His stand-in on earth.

So come on down! Let's importune St. Joseph and get those graces showering upon all our near and dear ones, all who have commended themselves to our prayers, all who are in need of our prayers (whether we're aware of their needs or not) and all for whom we've promised to pray. Whew, that's quite a list! Good thing our guardian angels are with us to keep track - we don't need to name every name (in fact we couldn't, come to think of it), but just trust. And as always, we can fortify our small supply of trust by drawing on the HUGE confidence of our sister St. Therese. Now that she sees Our Lord face to Face, she has no need of her trust and is happy to give it to us!

I'm not aware of our dear Marcel Van having written on St. Joseph, but I do love what Jesus told him in Conversations about the Heavenly Father's love for us, and I'm certain these words apply to good St. Joseph in his capacity as our father too. Jesus said:

"Come, come, little brother, the goodness of your true Father is without measure, as I have told you many times already. Even if, in His Love, He indulged you in everything, filling all your desires, He would never find it enough for His Love; He would only be afraid that you might not have the strength to receive all His treats." (492)

St. Joseph must have felt exactly this way regarding the Treasures the Heavenly Father confided into his care: Jesus, and Mary, his spouse, when they lived on earth, and the whole universal Church now. I'm sure St. Joseph wants to indulge us just as he would have wanted to indulge Mary and little Jesus in everything! And I've been thinking about how Mary and Jesus must have felt about him too. I imagine that St. Joseph was such a tremendous comfort to Our Lady and Jesus. He was both strong and gentle, prudent and loving, faithful, devoted, always near and ever ready to help in any task that arose in their little household. And when trials came - the first intimations of the cross in the flight to Egypt, their exile, and later the three day loss of the boy Jesus when He remained in the temple - St. Joseph was no doubt a refuge for Our Lady and a reminder of the faithfulness of the Father who would never abandon them.

I have a favorite St. Joseph novena prayer that I say a lot, and you'll be glad to hear it works! In his kindness and knowing my timorous heart, St. Joseph sometimes answers a petition even before I've said his prayer two or three times, let alone nine, and I'm so grateful. What a way to show us that our confidence is well placed! He would never neglect us, his children, and he is even now working out the answers to as many needs as we present to him.

One reason I love this particular prayer - okay, besides that it has been the means of obtaining many favors and graces over the years - is that it's replete with hope and childlike dependence, plus a lot of great reminders about how reliable St. Joseph is, how responsive, how quick to hear and answer.

Full disclosure: Some of my petitions have been trotted out again and again, and I know that doesn't sound like "quick to hear and answer" on St. Joseph's part. Rest assured that many others were answered by him pronto, and I know he would take care of every intention that way except that he wants to be as obedient to God as God always was to him! Are some of your petitions like some of mine, and you find yourself commending to him the same needs that have been with you for more than one or two of his feasts? I suspect I'm not alone in this, but I have a story to boost your perseverance.

In the beautiful Year of St. Joseph which unfortunately ended in December 2021 (I would have liked a decade of St. Joseph or maybe a century!), I was able to assist my two earthly fathers, that is my dad and my father-in-law, in their passages Home to God. They both were blessed with holy deaths, and for my father-in-law this was particularly marvelous because we had been praying for his return to the sacraments for decades! God knew and waited. St. Joseph heard and persisted in reminding the Father. We just kept praying and trusting and trusting and praying - and voila! Wonderfully, two weeks before he left this life for Eternal Life, my father-in-law cheerfully consented to receive the sacraments and did! The prayers of his parents from long ago, of his wife of 62 years, of his children from their childhoods, of his grandchildren and eventually great grandchildren, these were answered at last in one fell swoop of grace and mercy at the perfect moment God had in mind from all eternity.

Don't worry, then, if some of your prayers are still unanswered. God's timing is always perfect, and He loves that you continue to turn to Him with these persistent requests. And when you go to Him through St. Joseph, you are bringing in one who has great power over God's heart! We have much power over His Heart too, He loves us so much, but with St. Joseph there is that added business of obedience, since the Heavenly Father made St. Joseph the earthly father for Jesus Who was perfect in obedience as in everything else. As Marcel's father in the Redemptorists, St. Alphonsus, explains: "Just as Jesus Christ wanted to be subject to Joseph on earth, so He does everything the saint asks of Him in Heaven."

So what do you say? Shall we pray together? Let's honor St. Joseph with our filial confidence and take refuge in him as our Blessed Mother and little Jesus did. And the bigger your needs, the more challenging your requests, the better! This will give Jesus a chance to thank St. Joseph for the years of tender care he provided, and since God will never be outdone in generosity, He is delighted to have the opportunity to provide the tender care St. Joseph now asks on our behalf. May St. Joseph win the day and obtain God's answer to your petitions as swiftly as he obeyed the angels' messages when he was caring for Our Lord and Our Lady!

Marcel and Therese and I (and St. Andre Bessette) wish you the happiest of feasts. May St. Joseph spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, obtain for you an abundance of heavenly graces to more than answer all your deepest desires and petitions. And we pray he throws in a cupcake, or something equally sweet and fun, just to seal the deal!

As for that prayer I can never get enough of, here it is. I gladly pray it again, with you and for you, asking our angels fill in the blanks:

With childlike confidence I present myself before you, O holy Joseph, faithful foster father of Jesus! I beg your compassionate intercession and support in this, my present necessity. . .(and I pray too for all those who have asked my prayers, all those who need my prayers, and all those for whom I have promised to pray).

I firmly believe that you are most powerful near the throne of God, who chose you for the foster father of His well-beloved son, Jesus Christ. O blessed Saint, who saved that treasure of heaven, with His virginal mother, from the fury of His enemies, who with untiring industry supplied His earthly wants and with paternal care accompanied and protected Him in all the journeys of His childhood, take me also, for the love of Jesus, as your child. Assist me in my present difficulty . . .  with your prayers before God. The infinite goodness of Our Savior, who loved and honored you as His father upon earth, cannot refuse you any request now in heaven.

How many pious souls have sought help from you in their needs and have experienced, to their joy, how good, how ready you are to assist. How quickly you turn to those who call upon you with confidence! How powerful you are in bringing help and restoring joy to anxious and dejected hearts! Therefore, do I fly to you, O most worthy father of Jesus, most chaste spouse of Mary! Good St. Joseph, I pray you by the burning love you had for Jesus and Mary upon earth, console me in my distress and present my petitions . . .  through Jesus and Mary, before the throne of God! One word from you will move Him to assist my afflicted soul. Then most joyfully shall I praise Him and you, and most earnest shall be my thanksgiving!
Amen.
​
Draw me, we will run!

"'You have taught me from my youth, O God, and until now I will declare Your wonderful works. And until old age and gray hairs, Oh God, forsake me not.' What will this old age be fore me? It seems this could be right now, for two thousand years are not more in the Lord's eyes than are twenty years, than even a single day." - St. Therese, the first Little Flower (from Story of a Soul)

My goodness, our favorite brother and sister are getting old! Or they would be, had they not departed for heaven when they were young . . . This year on January 2nd we celebrated the 150th birthday of St. Therese, and here we are with her little brother Marcel, and he is 95 today! The remarkable thing about this is to realize that although he went to heaven in 1959, aged 31, if he had stayed on earth he would be only 95 today! What a wild and wonderful thought! Why just the other day my husband and I spent the day with a dear friend who is 95 . . . and to think that would be Marcel too!

So Marcel, dear brother, here's to you - and I see roses and presents which I can only imagine are from you to us, since you're in need of no such party favors where you are in Light and Love . . . and I have a very good idea what is in at least one of those boxes. I think you want to give us the Little Way today, because you've been knocking on my door in the middle of the night, not to ask and receive, but so that you could give and give and give!

Last night (or perhaps this morning, in the wee small hours) I opened Conversations and read from April 9, 1946, about the vision you had of Jesus, dear little brother. You wrote:

"Then I suddenly saw a cross appear beside little Jesus. At the top of the cross a piece of cloth was suspended on which was printed the Face of Jesus. Little Jesus looked at me with a joyful expression, then, showing me the cross He said to me, 'Little brother, here is your portion of the inheritance, here is the portion of the inheritance of the children. Do you see it clearly?' Then little Jesus, indicating Himself added, 'Little brother, here is the elevator which will allow you to take possession of this inheritance, and it will also be the same for the children. Do you understand? This is the way your sister Therese has led you up till now, after having followed it herself. Little brother, tell that to the children.'"

I know this way, it is the Little Way! And since Jesus is the Way, little Jesus must be the Little Way!

You tell us, Marcel, in your Autobiography, about being led by Therese, when you write in these words to Jesus:

"You have aroused in my mind the desire to become a saint. Then You made me find in a very simple manner the little way by which You guided St. Therese of the Infant Jesus. In short, You have used the hand of this little saint to write for the use of souls the sweet counsels to which You have led her on her little way. Today, I know that You love me, and that in Your immense love You behave towards me as with a little child. Oh, how You deserve to be loved in return!" (577)

Thank you, dear Marcel, for letting Jesus use your hand, too, to write for the use of souls the sweet counsels of the little way! But what did our sister say that showed you Jesus and His way? She did not see Him in a vision as you did, and yet she, the littlest Doctor of the Church, could tell us with certainty what she had experienced, and you are like an echo of her heart. She wrote:

"I have always wanted to be a saint. Alas! I have always noticed that when I compared myself to the saints, there is between them and me the same difference that exists between a mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds and the obscure grain of sand trampled underfoot by passers-by. Instead of becoming discouraged, I said to myself: God cannot inspire unrealizable desires. I can, then, in spite of my littleness, aspire to holiness. It is impossible for me to grow up, and so I must bear with myself such as I am with all my imperfections. But I want to seek out a means of going to heaven by a little way, a way that is very straight, very short, and totally new.

"We are living now in an age of inventions, and we no longer have to take the trouble of climbing stairs, for, in the homes of the rich, an elevator has replaced these very successfully. I wanted to find an elevator which would raise me to Jesus, for I am too small to climb the rough stairway of perfection. I searched, then, in the Scriptures for some sign of this elevator, the object of my desires, and I read these words coming from the mouth of Eternal Wisdom: 'Whoever is a LITTLE ONE, let him come to me.' And so I succeeded. I felt I had found what I was looking for. But wanting to know, O my God, what You would do to the the very little one who answered Your call, I continued my search and this is what I discovered: 

'As one whom a mother caresses, so will I comfort you; you shall be carried at the breasts, and upon the knees they shall caress you.'

"Ah! never did words more tender and more melodious come to give joy to my soul. The elevator which must raise me to heaven is Your arms, O Jesus! And for this I had no need to grow up, but rather I had to remain little and become this more and more." (Story of a Soul, Ms C, Chapter X)

Well!
Here we have your word, Marcel, with Jesus in your sight. Then we have Therese's word, with Scripture in her hands. And then . . . may I have a word?

Being a bear of very little brain and so forgetful (just like you, dear brother), I was entirely moved, as if for the first time, by a passage in Isaiah yesterday. And then it began to dawn on me, this passage wasn't entirely unfamiliar. It had moved me just so the day before! Ah, the eternal newness of Scripture and Jesus' message! Today I at least remembered it from the get go, but since the third time is the charm (for the Trinity!), here is my third day of Isaiah 63, 7-9, and it makes the third testimony to our elevator. What a charming Little Way for sure! 

Our passage is a dialogue, beginning with our lines, then switching over to our Divine Lover's:

The favors of the Lord I will recall, the glorious deeds of the Lord, because of all He has done for us; for He is good to the house of Israel, He has favored us according to His mercy and His great kindness.

He said: "They are indeed my people, children who are not disloyal." So He became their Savior in their every affliction. It was not a messenger or an angel, but He Himself Who saved them. Because of His love and pity, He redeemed them Himself, lifting them and carrying them all the days of old.

*  *  *
Marcel, if ever anyone has shown us in all the particulars, in each tiny detail day by day, how He became our Savior in every affliction, how He Himself saved us, how because of His love and pity He came down and lifted us and carried us - oh Marcel, I am saying "us" but you have shown us it is true by showing how He did each of these things for you in your little life on earth. You are the one who has shown us, just like our sister St. Therese did before you!

And so we owe you much, dear brother, and on this birthday we do what birthdays inspire us to do best: We thank God for you!

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for giving Your Beloved Son Jesus to Your beloved son Marcel! 

Thank You, Jesus, dear Spouse of our souls, for giving us Marcel as Your little secretary. Thank You for carrying him through all the vicissitudes of his 31 year life on earth and escorting him to Heaven when You finally gave him that first real kiss. Thank You for lifting him to Yourself, and showing us through his words that You desire to lift us too!

Thank You Holy Spirit of Love for teaching Marcel the Little Way through our sister, the angelic Therese, and yet not resting content with her experience, but filling his heart with Yourself that he could be another apostle for us children . . . and yet assuring us through him, as through Therese, as through Your own Inspired Word of Scripture, that finally it is Jesus Who is embracing us in all these words and teachings, that it is Jesus Himself who is the One Word of the Father, a Word which comforts and consoles, and then becomes Flesh to love us in Person, to be with us as we are, to show us all the way to the Cross this depth of Love from the Trinity . . . and remain with us in the Blessed Sacrament to continue to embrace and carry us!

Marcel, do shower us with roses on your birthday! Help Therese to cover the world with these roses, and especially all those we pray for through the intercession of St. Joseph, in these days leading to his feast. Oh, and don't stop teaching us the Little Way. You know we forget all the time, so we need your constant companionship to make us laugh, take ourselves more lightly, and look at Jesus, standing before us with open arms, ready to embrace us and press His lips to our faces. 

Hooray for birthdays! Hooray for Marcel! Hooray for Jesus!

Draw me, we will run!!!

Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, because on this day, February 11, in 1858, our beautiful Mother Mary appeared to 14 year old St. Bernadette Soubirous for the first time. Our Lady came back to see Bernadette (and Bernadette came to the grotto to see Our Lady) 17 more times, their final meeting here being on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel! How's that for ecumenism?

This feast is very dear to my heart because in high school I got to be Bernadette in a play my senior year. Then a few months later, I visited the campus of Thomas Aquinas College for the first time, and the first Mass I attended there was on Februrary 11, Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, 40 years ago today! Some years later when St. Thomas and his college and Our Lady had changed me forever, my husband (yes, now I had a husband) interviewed for a teaching job at Christendom College - on Februrary 11th! And then some years after that, I found in the Christendom College library a book (Celine's Memoir of My Sister St. Therese) that led me to another book (Beyond East and West, by John C. H. Wu) that led me to another book (Forever Love by Fr. Nicholas Maestrini, P.I.M.E.) that led me to a wonderful Italian missionary priest (the same Fr NM, P.I.M.E.) who had "met" St. Therese when he served in his youth as an altar boy for Pope Pius XI at St. Therese's beatification and canonization Masses in 1923 and 1925! (That was many years before I met Fr. Maestrini, no longer an entirely young boy when we became friends! Though he was forever impish, like Marcel!)

In short, I love this day, and I love Our Lady of Lourdes and dear St. Bernadette, a little one if ever there was one! And so another little one, Marcel by name, and I were chatting (not much like an apparition nor even like a locution, but much more like me thinking of something and Marcel NOT appearing to say I got it wrong). And here is what I thought of and Marcel tacitly approved, and I'm SO very excited to share it with you, because it's about Our Lady and Our Ladies, so how fitting for the day!

In fact it would be very strange if Marcel had any objections to my idea, because it comes straight from Jesus, Truth Himself. I just had to tweak it a little to make it apply to Mary, but see what you think - I think it works perfectly in this new context!

Jesus is speaking to Marcel on April 23, 1946 (Easter Tuesday that year), and He says in Conversations:

"Why do I have to choose many apostles for the expansion of the reign of my Love? Because it is necessary that there should be some for every category of person. You, for example, you must use a certain manner of speaking, while another will have to use a different one, which responds to the feelings of his audience" (512)

Actually, upon re-reading this passage, I see I don't have to tweak it at all. Our Lady's reign of Love is no different than her Son Jesus' reign of Love - she is only and always about spreading His Love and bringing His Kingdom of Love to all souls (and all souls to it), and so, I'm sure that my idea is just as sensible and brilliant as I thought!

But what is my idea?

Well, I've mentioned in the past that I have friends who find Padre Pio a little scary, and I've often resolved never to give up helping them see how un-scary he is, how very gentle and generous, how assuredly loving and mild, despite those true stories of his yelling at PEOPLE WHO LIED TO HIM in the confessional. Really, as long as you don't intend to lie to Padre Pio in the confessional (too late to do so anyhow!) or snip off a piece of his habit for a relic when he's walking by (too late as well, though had I been there when he was walking by, I'd have been tempted to snip for sure!), as I say, as long as you won't do these things (and you can't now, so you're quite safe) you're in like Flynn with him! And that brings to him everyone you love too!

But somehow I'm getting away from the point . . . which is that like Padre Pio, sometimes certain Our Ladies can seem a bit scary. But unlike with Padre Pio, I've realized that I'm perfectly fine with allowing Our Lady of Fatima, for instance, to fend for herself, with the help of Jacinta, Francisco, and Lucia (who are the ones who got me to fall in love with her, and come to think of it they started on February 11, 2013!).

Why this disappearance of my previous compulsion to convince timid souls that Our Lady of Fatima was just as full of love and gentleness as the other Our Ladies? And yes, despite my goofiness, I do realize they are more or less the same one, single, uniquely wonderful, loving and lovable Mother of God, but isn't it fun that she is so very multifarious?!

Well, though . . . what did Jesus just tell us?

"Why do I have to choose many apostles for the expansion of the reign of my Love? Because it is necessary that there should be some for every category of person."

Heavens above!
I think that means that Our Lady comes to us in many guises (and sometimes seeming disguises) so that she might "use a certain manner of speaking" here, to suit the needs of her children, while over there, she "will have to use a different one, which responds to the feelings of her audience."

Wowie zowie! Isn't this awesome? Our Lord is so infinitely solicitous, so tenderly concerned with each of our souls and our feelings - that He is determined, as is His so beautiful Mother who in a certain sense taught Him these sweet manners, to come to us each in a way we can best recognize and receive Him!

And that makes sense because with the proliferation of Our Ladies, there is the perfect representation of our dear Mother to meet the needs of each of her children.

I have long found this to be true of St. Therese as well, not that it takes away from who she really is, but like St. Paul she was concerned to be all things for all men, and so there were times when, with her novices for instance, she would speak to one in an entirely different way than she spoke to another. Celine made sure to explain in the beginning of her Memoir of My Sister St. Therese that as Fr. Pichon (the Martin family's spiritual director) used to say (and I think he followed St. John of the Cross in this), "There as many differences between souls as between faces." So, Celine warned, because she wanted to share absolutely all Therese's counsels to the novices - but these counsels were different depending on the recipient's temperament and disposition - the reader should (in a familiar modern saying) "Take what you like and leave the rest." Some counsels will suit and help one reader, while other counsels could be detrimental.

So, too, I think we ought to follow our natural attractions and not worry when one particular Our Lady speaks to our heart - and another doesn't!

Marcel, for instance, loved Our Lady of Perpetual Help, an Our Lady particularly confided to the Redemptorist Order to which he belonged. Therese loved the Virgin of the Smile - the representation of Our Lady in a family statue which Our Lady had used to smile upon her and cure her of her childhood illness. My Fr. Maestrini loved the image of Our Lady of Confidence (whose bookmark fortuitously marks the page from which I quoted Our Lord's words about His needing different apostles, and which I've extended to different Our Ladies). 

Luckily none of us really has to choose - we can receive Our Lady's love from whichever of her appearances appeals to us most, even on a given day - and since we are here liturgically at the feet of Our Lady of Lourdes, I have something special to share about her which I hope you too will find irresistible. 

It comes from one of Our Lady's children who felt the deep meaning of Lourdes and expressed it much better than I can: namely, St. Teresa of Jesus of the Andes. She lived in Chile and died a little more than 100 years ago in 1920, and like Therese and Marcel and Elizabeth of the Trinity she burned out young due to the ardor of her and Jesus' love. She was only in the Carmel (for yes, she was another young Carmelite nun when she died) for 9 months, dying when she was 19, and shooting to heaven straight into the arms of Jesus and Mary. But here is what she wrote when she was 17, and I have to agree with every word. It sums up the true Immaculate Heart and attraction of all Our Ladies exactly!  

From her Spiritual Diary:

Lourdes, Mary, Mother Full of Sweetness; February 12, 1917

The day before and yesterday we went to Lourdes [the Grotto of the Virgin of Lourdes in Santiago]. Lourdes! This word alone causes the deepest chords to vibrate in the Christian, the Catholic.
Lourdes! Who doesn’t feel moved when pronouncing that word! It means Heaven in this exile.
The word bears under its mantle of mystery whatever great things the Catholic heart is capable of feeling. Her name causes past memories to be taken away and deeply touches the intimate feelings of our soul. It contains joy, superhuman peace, whence the pilgrim, fatigued by the sorrowful journey of life, can find rest; can without fear put down his baggage, which is our human miseries, and open his mouth to receive the water of consolation and comfort. It is where the tears of the poor are mixed with the tears of the rich, where they meet only a Mother who is gazing on them and smiling on them. And in that celestial gaze and smile there gush forth sobs from all breasts so that their hearts are filled with happiness and they cannot pull themselves away. It makes them hope and love the eternal and the divine.
           
Yes, Mother, you are the celestial Madonna who guides us. You allow heavenly rays to fall from your maternal hands. I didn’t believe such happiness could exist on earth; yesterday my heart, while thirsting for it, found it. My soul was ecstatic at your virginal feet, listening to you. You were speaking and your maternal language was so tender. It was from heaven, almost divine.
           
In seeing you so pure, so tender, and so compassionate, who would not be encouraged to unburden his intimate sufferings to you? Who would not ask you to be his star on this stormy sea? Who is there who would not cry in your arms without instantly receiving your immaculate kisses of love and comfort? If he be a sinner, your caresses will soften him. If one of your devoted ones, your presence would enkindle the living flame of divine love. If he be poor, you with your powerful hand will aid him and show him his true homeland. If rich, you will sustain him with your breath against the dangers of his very agitated life. If one is in affliction, you with your tearful gaze will show him the cross and on it your Divine Son. Who will not find balm for his pains by considering the torments of Jesus and Mary? The sick man finds in your maternal heart the water of salvation that allows your enchanting smile to blossom forth, and makes him smile with love and happiness.

Yes, Mary, you are Mother of the entire universe. Your heart is filled with sweetness. At your feet let the priest prostrate himself with the same confidence as the virgin in order to find in your arms the fullness of your love. The rich as well as the poor can find in your heart their heaven. The afflicted as well as the happy can find on your mouth a celestial smile. The sick as well as the healthy can find caresses from your sweet hands. And, finally, sinners like myself find in you a protecting Mother who can crush beneath her immaculate feet the head of the dragon. And in your eyes I see mercy, pardon, and a shining lamp to keep me from falling into the muddy waters of sin.

Yes, my Mother. At Lourdes I found heaven. God was on the altar surrounded by angels and you, from the concave of the rock, offered Him the cries of the multitude kneeling before your altar. You asked Him to hear the supplications of the people banished in this valley of tears, while at the same time, together with their hymns, they were offering you their hearts full of love and gratitude.

*    *    *

I forgot to mention that I had the privilege of going to Lourdes in France when I was a girl. What struck me most was the little "house" of Bernadette and her family at the time of the apparitions. I put "house" in quotes because it was actually an abandoned prison, so damp and rank that it was considered too awful for prisoners! But the Soubirous family needed a place to live, and so they lived there. On the wall (in French, but my angel helped me translate it at the time) were stenciled the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians:

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world that He might shame the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world that He might shame the strong. 

Being foolish and weak myself, like my brother Marcel, I'm charmed to think that God chooses the likes of me, of Marcel, of Bernadette, and no doubt of you too, as apostles who have the delight of receiving and sharing His message of love. 

And since they really all are one single lovely Our Lady, why not allow the words of one of them to suffice as our meditation for today? From Our Lady's heart (at Guadalupe) to ours:

Hear and let it penetrate your heart, my dear little one:
Let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you. 
Let nothing alter your heart or your countenance.
Am I not here who am your Mother?
Are you not under my shadow and protection?
Am I not your fountain of life?
Are you not in the folds of my mantle?
In the crossing of my arms?
Is there anything else that you need?
Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain.

Or as Jesus assured Marcel, and thus sends to us the message:
"Do not worry! Mary is very happy with us both!" (Conversations, 386)

He is so good, and His kindness is at its most merciful when He gives us all our Our Ladies. I am finishing a novena to Our Lady of Lourdes on her feast, and I ask her to take your intentions (for yourself and those you love, for whatever graces you may need), to her dear Son, Who waits lovingly to fulfill our desires. May Our Lady, the Immaculate Conception, bring healing and joy to us all today, and to all those we love, as well as the whole Church and the whole world! 

Draw me, dear Mother, we will run!

How time flies! There was a day when St. Therese, at age 24, explained to her sister, "As far as little ones are concerned, they will be judged with great gentleness. And one can remain little, even in the most formidable offices, even when living for a long time. If I were to die at the age of eighty, if I were in China, anywhere, I would still die, I feel, as little as I am today. And it is written: 'At the end, the Lord will rise up to save the gentle and the humble of the earth.' It doesn't say 'to judge,' but 'to save.'"

Therese died - or rather, as she liked to say, was born into eternal life - only a few days later. She never made it to age 80 on earth, but today we celebrate the 150th anniversary of her birth, so there's a way in which she's made it way past 80! And guess what? Although she is, according to Pope St. Pius X, the greatest saint of modern times, she is also - still - little. Her advice hasn't changed, and she wants us to be little with her, however old we may be on this day and in the future. 

Therese's sister Celine was older, and in fact lived on this earth much longer, all the way to 1959 when she was not only 80, but almost 90! Only then did Jesus take her to Himself and reunite her with her parents and siblings and her dear Therese . . . and Celine remained little even amidst many and varied projects in the Carmel (where she was Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face) by which she spent her life living and making known St. Therese's Little Way. Celine knew this Little Way intimately because not only had Therese formed her in the novitiate, but Therese couldn't help but teach it in everything she did and wrote . . . And so, in the spirit of birthdays (having so recently celebrated Jesus's own birthday!) here is what Therese wrote to Celine for her (Celine's) 25th natal day: words to encourage her - and which can encourage us now:

"Céline, do not fear the storms of earth.... Your guardian angel is covering you with his wings, and Jesus . . . reposes in your heart. You do not see His treasures; Jesus is sleeping and the angel remains in his mysterious silence. However, they are there with Mary, who is hiding you also under her veil!...Do not fear, dear Céline, as long as your lyre does not cease to sing for Jesus, never will it break.... No doubt it is fragile, more fragile than crystal. If you were to give it to an inexperienced musi­cian, soon it would break; but Jesus is the one who makes the lyre of your heart sound.... He is happy that you are feeling your weakness; He is the one placing in your soul sentiments of mistrust of itself. Dear Céline, thank Jesus. He grants you His choice graces; if always you remain faithful in pleasing Him in little things He will find Himself OBLIGED to help you in GREAT things. The apostles worked all night without Our Lord and they caught no fish, but their work was pleasing to Jesus. He willed to prove to them that He alone can give us something; He willed that the apostles hum­ble themselves. "Children," he said to them, "have you nothing to eat?'" "Lord," St. Peter answered, "we have fished all night and have caught nothing." Perhaps if he had caught some little fish, Jesus would not have performed the miracle, but he had nothing, so Jesus soon filled his net in such a way as almost to break it. This is the character of Jesus: He gives as God, but He wills humility of heart...."

Dear Therese, on this beautiful anniversary of your birth, now that you are happily ensconced in Heaven but continuing to come down and work to show us the Little Way on earth, please grant our requests as so many birthday gifts . . . Let us find Jesus in His extreme littleness and poverty in the manger, and let Him find us and remain with us in our true littleness and spiritual poverty. We love you, dear sister Therese! Happy Birthday!

Draw me, we will run!

Four hundred and ninety-one years ago on this day, the Mother of God appeared in Mexico to the one she loved and whom she called her dearest and youngest son, Juan Diego.
The Nican Mopohua, written in the Aztec language by the Indian scholar Antonio Valeriano around the middle of the sixteenth century, tells how it happened:

"On a Saturday just before dawn, he was on his way to pursue divine worship…As he reached the base of the hill known as Tepeyac, came the break of day, and he heard singing atop the hill, resembling singing of varied beautiful birds…He was looking toward the east, on top of the mound, from whence came the precious celestial chant; and then it suddenly ceased and there was silence. He then heard a voice from above the mount saying to him: “Juanito, Juan Dieguito.” Then he ventured and went to where he was called. He was not frightened in the least; on the contrary, overjoyed.
"Then he climbed the hill, to see from where he was being called. When he reached the summit, he saw a Lady, who was standing there and told him to come hither. Approaching her presence, he marveled greatly at her superhuman grandeur; her garments were shining like the sun; the cliff where she rested her feet, pierced with glitter, resembling an anklet of precious stones, and the earth sparkled like the rainbow. The mezquites, nopales, and other different weeds, which grow there, appeared like emeralds, their foliage like turquoise, and their branches and thorns glistened like gold. He bowed before her and heard her word, tender and courteous, like someone who charms and esteems you highly."

She speaks to him, and unlike in the apparitions later at Lourdes and Fatima, Our Lady is clear about her identity from the beginning.

"She said: “Juanito, the most humble of my sons, where are you going?” He replied: “My Lady and Child, I have to reach your church in Mexico, Tlatilolco, to pursue things divine…” She then spoke to him: “Know for certain, dearest of my sons, that I am the perfect and ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of the true God, the Lord of all things and Master of Heaven and Earth. I ardently desire a temple to be built here, where I will show and offer all my love, compassion, help, and protection to the people and those who look for me. I am your merciful Mother, the Mother of all who live in this land and of all mankind. I will hear the weeping and sorrows of those who love me, cry to me, and have confidence in me, and I will give them consolation and relief. Therefore, so that my designs might be fulfilled, go to the house of the Bishop of Mexico City and tell him that I sent you, and that it is my desire to have a temple built in this place.”"

Juan made it to the Bishop’s house, and eventually saw the Bishop, but like any Bishop worth his salt, this one didn’t immediately congratulate the seer on his good fortune at meeting the Blessed Mother—he said he’d take the matter under consideration, and Juan went away sad. He returned to Our Lady for his second visit with her that day and told her of the Bishop’s rebuff.

“I perfectly understood by the manner he replied that he believes it to be an invention of mine…for which I exceedingly beg, Lady and my Child, that you entrust the delivery of your message to someone of importance, well known, respected, and esteemed, so that they may believe in him; because I am a nobody, I am a small rope, a tiny ladder, the tail end, a leaf, and you, my Child, the least of my children, my Lady, you send me to a place where I never visit nor repose. Please excuse the great unpleasantness and let not fretfulness befall, my Lady and my All.”

No wonder Our Lady loved Juanito: he’s meek as Moses, yet poetic as David. He is a tail end, a leaf—and she, who at her first appearance as the Mother of God rejoiced that the Almighty would exalt the lowly, had certainly found a lowly son in Juan. Needless to say, she wouldn’t let him off the hook, and he promised to go on the morrow to see the Bishop again.

The rest of the history can briefly told: the next day, December 10, 1531, Juan returned to the Bishop and the Bishop asked for a sign. Our Lady promised Juan to give him the Bishop’s sign the next day, but that next day, December 11, Juan didn’t come for the sign—he was caring for his uncle, whom he’d found gravely ill at home.

December 12 dawned and Juan set out to get the priest to administer the last sacraments to his dying uncle. And in the rush to help his uncle, Juan did what any of us would have done—he avoided the Blessed Mother, because he didn’t want to be rude, but he had important things to accomplish.
He went round the other side of the hill “so he could not be seen by her who sees well everywhere,” but because she does see well everywhere, she didn’t wait for him, but approached and asked where he was going. Explaining his concern for his uncle, he promised to return soon, the next day for certain.

And then, just as we must thank the Bishop for demanding a sign which yielded us a miraculous image of Our Lady, so we must thank St. Juan for avoiding Our Lady – thus prompting, in his worry and fear, words of Our Lady—to us, through him—as lovely as her unfading image:


"Hear and let it penetrate your heart, my dear little one:
Let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you.
Let nothing alter your heart or your countenance.
Am I not here who am your Mother?
Are you not under my shadow and protection?
Am I not your fountain of life?
Are you not in the folds of my mantle?
In the crossing of my arms?
Is there anything else that you need?
Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain.
Do not be afflicted by the illness of your uncle, who will not die now of it. Be assured that he is now cured.”
​

Some years ago, when this feast of St. Juan Diego came around, I noticed the wonderful window between his feast and hers, between December 9 and December 12, between her initial appearances to him and the day she gave him a sign. And seeing this window, there was nothing to do but climb through it so that I could spend time with the Mother of God and her humble servant Juanito.Our Lady then sent Juan to pick roses – out of season, for it was winter – and he found abundant roses the likes of which he’d never seen before: colorful Castilian roses which were familiar to the Spanish Bishop and the answer to his own previous prayers to Our Lady. And then, in the surprise ending which attracts millions of pilgrims in a steady stream to see Juan’s “incorrupt” tilma hanging in Mexico City, Juan dropped the roses before the Bishop and revealed Our Lady’s image on his cloak.

Life rushes by so quickly, the liturgical year included, that no sooner has a feast come then it’s gone again, gone for another year before we’ve had time to catch our breath, let alone take in the meaning of the day.

But this delightful triduum that brings us from December 9 to December 12 seems to me the antidote to our hurry and our fears. Our Lady herself couldn’t rush Juan, and the consequence is an opportunity to imitate both of them—by pondering in our hearts, like Our Blessed Mother did, by pondering her words to him, as Juan must have done.

And so I came up with the idea of a triduum in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a kind of mini-novena, a chance to accompany Juan in his days with Our Blessed Mother. The plan is simple: Read Our Lady of Guadalupe’s words (“Hear, and let it penetrate your heart, my dear little one…”) each day from today, St. Juan Diego’s day, to Monday, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. You will notice in these words that she asks us only…to trust her! And if you miss a day, that’s fitting—Juan did too.
​
As we progress through Advent, and the very day after Our Lady's Immaculate Conception, here is another chance to discover what Infinite Mercy is all about. At Cana Our Lady said, “Do whatever He tells you,” and at the Last Supper He said, “Let not your hearts be troubled or afraid.” So whether you listen to Mercy Himself, or His Merciful Mother, the message is the same: there is no more need to worry. She’s got us covered (with her mantle), we are in her arms and heart, and she means every word she says.

And in case you'd like to see her words again without having to scroll up (oh how I love these words!), Juan Diego himself offers them to us from Our dear Lady of Guadalupe:

"Hear and let it penetrate your heart, my dear little one:
Let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you.
Let nothing alter your heart or your countenance.
Am I not here who am your Mother?
Are you not under my shadow and protection?
Am I not your fountain of life?
Are you not in the folds of my mantle?
In the crossing of my arms?
Is there anything else that you need?
Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain.
Do not be afflicted by the illness of your uncle, who will not die now of it. Be assured that he is now cured.”

Draw me, we will run!

Happy Feast of St. Andrew! 

It may seem funny to top our post with a picture of His many fans adoring baby Jesus when here it is only the beginning of Advent, but I think St. Andrew is inviting us today to get ready. It is, after all, the day we can start our special prayer to obtain favors by imploring our Heavenly Father through the merits of the blessed hour and moment of Jesus' birth . . . and then, I'm finding Advent to have come upon us so quickly that I need to remind myself of the very simple reason for the season: the infinite love of our Savior and God!

The Magnificat had a beautiful meditation this week that came from the pen of Servant of God Archbishop Luis Maria Martinez, and I knew I had to share it here in case you hadn't seen it. We at Miss Marcel's Musings are huge fans of the book I Believe in Love, and this meditation - though not from that book - encapsulates the message of I Believe in Love, of little St. Therese, of Marcel - of Jesus Himself! - so very well! If you have seen this meditation already, I bet you'll enjoy reading it again! So here it is, from dear Archbishop Martinez, with thanks to Magnificat for printing it:

"God's love has all the characteristics of the love we idealize in our ardent dreams, for we all dream; it so becomes the human heart to dream. Yes, we want to be loved with a deep, tender, consuming love. Half measures do not satisfy us . . . Now let me assure you of this: Jesus loves us more, infinitely more, than we desire, more than we dare to dream of. Sometimes our dreams seem bold, almost absurd; nevertheless, they are far below reality. It is this very magnitude of God's love that so frequently disconcerts us. We think: 'It is an exaggeration to say God loves me like that. If not even I can love myself that way, how is it possible that God does so? No, that is an excess.' Right, it is an excess; infinite love has to be so. The Incarnation, the manger, Nazareth, the Cenacle, Gethsemane, Calvary - each was an excess . . . In comparison with our smallness, infinite love must necessarily be an excess. Yet how difficult to convince souls that God so loves them. If they could be convinced, how many anxieties would be alleviated.

"We may go a step farther. God's love for us is not a sterile love, confined to heaven; it is an active love, provident, watchful, solicitous; it is a love that does not forget us one moment, that protects us unceasingly, that keeps arranging minutely all the events of our life from the most far-reaching to the most insignificant. I am not exaggerating; Jesus Himself affirmed it: No hair of your head shall perish. Some persons may consider this hyperbole. Perhaps, but at any rate it is a hyperbole expressive of the solicitude, the constancy, the minute care of God's love for us. Consider a mother caring for her first babe, watching at his cradle, ever mindful of his needs, anxious lest he weep or become ill. The devotion of such a mother cannot match even remotely the constant, minute, tender solicitude of our Lord. If only we had the faith to understand this. Not for one moment does our Lord turn His eyes away from us, nor does His hand cease to guide us; at each instant of our lives His power protects us and His love enfolds us. And if this is true, if God's solicitude for us is loving, unalterable, most tender, what reason have we to be disturbed? Can a child in his mother's arms be disturbed?"

*   *    *

How eager Jesus is to make us understand this infinitely tender solicitous Love that brought Him from Heaven to earth! There are so many things that might (and will) distract us this Advent, and yet what we can return to, what the Holy Spirit wants us to remember (and He will remind us, don't worry!), is the simple but unutterably magnificent fact that God became man: that the Father sent the Son to live with us, first as a baby, then growing through the years into a man, the Man whom Andrew met and followed and invites us to follow. 

Just little baby Jesus, with Mary and Joseph behind Him, ready to hold Him out to us for our embrace and our kiss. And He has made Himself so kissable!

As to gifts, He is The Gift, we know that, but then He likes us to ask for others. He knows every smidgen of our anxiety for our loved ones, of the pain in the world, of the intentions commended to us and that we are commending to yet others. So here is the prayer we can say beginning today, on St. Andrew's feast. all the way up to Christmas. I love this prayer because it reminds me of Jesus' birth in the silence and dark of the night which was then lit by God Incarnate. And although I have heard it recommended that one say this prayer 15 times a day, well, that would cease to remind me of Jesus' birth and instead become (for me) an act of compulsion and confusion, so please feel free to be very little and say this prayer now, and once a day if you love it - or however often it delights you to delight Jesus in saying it! (And if 15 times a day is delightful and sweet for you, that is wonderful too!) I thought it might be fun to ask for 15 favors (since intentions seem to be piling up over here), but however you approach this prayer, may it bring you joy and Jesus! Here it is:

Hail and blessed be the hour and the moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour vouchsafe, O my God, to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Savior Jesus Christ and of His Blessed Mother, Amen.

I can't imagine how many sweet favors God has in mind for us, along with the sweetest favor of Himself. I hope you will be able to receive Him in Holy Communion soon, so that His sweetness will sweeten your waiting (or rather, help you wait as you fulfill your little Christmas preparations) - and this too is marvelous! Jesus loves us so much that He can't wait for Christmas to come to us! He is happy to come to us each day, to even stay with us between times (as St. Therese experienced in her Eucharistic Miracle and we explain in Something New with St. Therese), and really, how can we be surprised? Love requires union, and Jesus is all-powerful. May His union with us this Advent prepare us for His union with us this Christmas. As He frequently repeats to Marcel, He is holding us close and covering us unceasingly with kisses. May you find your anxieties relieved and your fears quieted by the knowledge of His nearness and His insistence on keeping you close to Him forever!

Draw me, we will run!

         "I will spend my heaven doing good on the earth. I will let fall a shower of roses."
                                                                                                                   - St. Therese

The official Thanksgiving day of this year may have passed, but we have so much to be grateful for that I think an octave of thanks (at least) is in order! Now that the big feasting on turkey and pumpkin pie is behind us (with maybe some leftovers ahead), what a wonderful opportunity we have to thank God in a more leisurely way for His endless benefits.

One thing I'm thankful for is the opportunity I had last week to speak to the girls at Thomas Aquinas College. We met in St. Monica's dorm and, armed with relics of St. Therese and St. Thomas, I joyfully told them about St. Therese, her Little Way, her Act of Oblation to Merciful Love, and last but not least, her "Something New" that I've written about in Something New with St. Therese, Her Eucharistic Miracle. 

I've done some editing, but here, essentially, is the talk I gave (minus the tangents, digressions, and laughter, but I'll leave those to your guardian angel to fill in). What a gift to share God's infinite love with the college girls by sharing St. Therese and her mission of helping us love Him like she does. Thank You, Jesus! And now, I'm delighted to share St. Therese and her mission with you! So here, below the stars, is my talk.

*   *    *

I first met St. Therese early in my freshmen year here and I still remember the date: October 7, 1983. A new friend who was a senior explained to me what a holy hour is and how awesome it is to sign up for the middle of the night, like 3 am, and go out of your dorm in the dark and the silence, and meet Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel and talk with Him in this intimate meeting – totally unusual and romantic! So I signed up and she loaned me a book called the Complete Spiritual Doctrine of St. Therese, and I only read a little of it in the holy hour, but I was immediately captivated because I hadn’t really come across this message before about how we could be simply ourselves with God, just like little children.
 
A couple years later David O’Reilly, now a famous winemaker and brother of the president here, but then just a nice guy in my class, asked me if I’d ever read Story of a Soul, St. Therese’s autobiography. He thought I’d really like it, so I read it that summer, between junior and senior year, and it blew me away. Every page was like being right there with Therese and Jesus, and it helped me understand how close Jesus wants to be to us. So I kept following her lead, from one book to the next over the years, asking her help in lots of things, taking her name when my husband and I became third order Carmelites, and as the decades went by, I kept learning as much as I could about her – and on her side she kept showing up and changing my life in various ways, always for the better, and giving me the courage for whatever was next.
 
Well tonight I’m going to talk to you in particular about St. Therese and her Eucharistic miracle. And the first thing to say about this miracle is that I didn’t notice it in my first thirty years of knowing and loving St. Therese and reading everything I could get my hands on about her! After all that time, I discovered it just a few years ago at a talk given here by Fr. Michael Gaitley. He wrote 33 Days to Morning Glory, the book you can use for Marian consecration, but he also wrote a book called 33 Days to Merciful Love, all about St. Therese and her Act of Oblation to Merciful Love.
 
I don’t know if all of you know St. Therese very well, so I’ll tell you first a few key things about her, and then I’ll tell you about her Eucharistic Miracle and how she wants you to get involved.
 
Therese was born in 1873, the youngest in a very loving family, and from her parents and siblings she learned a lot about being loved. Her parents are Sts. Louis and Zelie, the first married couple ever to be canonized together. Both her brothers and two sisters died very young, but her four living sisters all ended up becoming nuns, and three of them, Pauline, Marie, and Celine, were Carmelites where she was, in the Carmel of Lisieux. Her religious name was St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, and she became a Discalced Carmelite when she was just 15 and died when she was only 24, in 1897. Because she lived in the late 1800’s, it might seem normal to you that she became a nun at 15, but even then that was super unusual and she had to get special permission to do it, but since God had planned for her to die at 24 (or as she liked to say, she was entering Life at that point) it’s a good thing she entered the Carmelite monastery at 15, because that gave her just 9 years to figure out her Little Way to become a saint.
 
She had a very deep experience of God’s infinite love, first in her family, but then from Him directly, though without having the kind of visions or big mystical experiences we might imagine when we think of the saints. She lived a very small, hidden, ordinary life, so much so that when she was dying, one of the small group of religious sisters she lived with, knowing they’d send out an obituary to the other Carmelite monasteries, said, “What will we find to say about her?” and a few years later when the idea of her having a cause for sainthood was suggested, her own blood sister Leonie, who knew her well, said, “She was nice, but a Saint?” And her uncle was positively appalled and opposed to it!

So you may think at first, Oh, St. Therese, she’s a huge saint . . . and she is now that she’s in heaven, but on earth she was very ordinary and specifically said that she wanted everything she did to be imitable – able to be imitated by other ordinary people like us! And she was very serious about that. For instance, when she was dying, her sister Pauline said, “Perhaps you’ll die tomorrow on the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel right after you’ve received Holy Communion” And Therese responded that she wouldn’t want that because little souls couldn’t imitate it. Another time they talked to her about the saints who were incorrupt (their bodies haven’t decomposed after hundreds of years), and again she said, “Nope, I’m not going to be incorrupt, little souls couldn’t imitate that!” And she wasn’t! She also was never capable of big mortifications – trying to do them would make her sick – and so, one of my favorite stories about her is that when her fingers got sticky, she wouldn’t wash them right away, she’d offer that up. Which I have to say is for me a huge mortification, but you can see it fits this pattern of littleness. So in a thousand ways she was very ordinary, although her love for God and her confidence in Him – exactly what she wants to share with us – are extraordinary and quite huge.
 
One particular thing I love about St. Therese which I find makes her more like us than we expect a saint to be is that she wasn’t necessarily good at what she was supposed to be doing. She’s a great one to ask for help if you’re having trouble with your basic duties! Her main duty in the Carmel was prayer, and she was constantly – I mean really constantly – falling asleep at prayer in the chapel. They would kneel on the bare floor to pray, and she’d wake up at the end of prayer time, her head on the floor again! And when she was assigned chores, she didn’t always do a good job – she’d never had to sweep at home, and so she swept terribly in the Carmel and was also super afraid of spiders, which made her sweeping even worse! But she thought about these failures, and she realized that they didn’t make her any less adorable to God, her loving Father. Parents love their children even when their children are inept! And parents love to watch their children sleeping, so she just figured that when she slept at prayer, God delighted in that too!
 
All of her realizations came to fruition in what became known as her Little Way of Spiritual Childhood, which she described in these words:
 
"It is to recognize our nothingness, to expect everything from God as a little child expects everything from its father; it is to be disquieted about nothing, and not to be set on gaining our living. Even among the poor, they give the child what is necessary, but as soon as he grows up, his father no longer wants to feed him and says: 'Work now, you can take care of yourself.'

"It was so as not to hear this that I never wanted to grow up, feeling that I was incapable of making my living, the eternal life of heaven. I've always remained little, therefore, having no other occupation but to gather flowers, the flowers of love and sacrifice, and of offering them to God in order to please Him.

"To be little is not attributing to oneself the virtues that one practices, believing oneself capable of anything, but to recognize that God places this treasure in the hands of His little child to be used when necessary; but it remains always God's treasure. Finally, it is not to become discouraged over one's faults, for children fall often, but they are too little to hurt themselves very much."
 
Two more things about St. Therese, and then we’ll get to her Eucharistic Miracle.
 
First, she’s a great saint to know because she LOVES to come down and help with all the particular situations we get ourselves into. When she was dying, her sisters were distraught at losing her, and one day Pauline asked hopefully but I imagine anxiously, “You’ll look down upon us from heaven, won’t you?” and Therese replied instantly, “No, I will come down!” And she meant that literally!
 
I love when people use the word literally but they don’t really mean it literally. Like if someone says, “It literally blew my mind!” but there’s this person standing in front of you, his head totally intact. Well with St. Therese, she literally does come down (and I want to add that Padre Pio is like this too) – for instance, during World War I, soldiers fighting on both sides would have the experience of being saved by a nurse dragging them away from their positions so they wouldn’t be blown up or killed, and later they would see a picture of St. Therese (she was only Sister Therese then) and say, “That was the nurse who saved me!” Except that she had died in 1897 and come down from heaven to save them in the years between 1914 and 1917! There’s a whole book that’s recently been republished in English – a book of letters from soldiers telling of how she saved them. St. Therese had told her sisters before she died that they would find her in the mailbox, and sure enough, their tiny monastery in this little town in France got hundreds of letters a day from people all over the world telling how Sister Therese had helped them, healed them, and saved their lives. And while that began over a hundred years ago, her interest in us continues to this day – she promised – literally - to come down until the end of time, and fulfill her mission of making God loved as she loved Him, so definitely become friends with her if you aren’t already and ask her for whatever you need! She also promised to shower roses, and she’s known for that – she loves giving roses at the end of a novena.
 
Second, and our final thing to know biographically about Therese, is that in 1997, a hundred years after her death, Pope John Paul II proclaimed her the 33rd  and by far the youngest Doctor of the Church, and he wrote a great apostolic letter to go with her doctorate, called “The Science of Divine Love” – which was the science Therese knew and wants to teach us.
 
So now let’s get to the discovery at the heart of my book, a discovery Jesus has been waiting a couple thousand years to reveal, and something that, if not entirely new in the Church, has been extremely hidden until recently.
 
In his letter for her doctorate, Pope St. John Paul II wrote: “At the summit, as the source and goal (of her message) is the merciful love of the three Divine Persons, as she expresses it, especially in her Act of Oblation to Merciful Love.” In other words, St. Therese’s main teaching for us is about God’s infinitely Merciful Love, and she most perfectly expresses this in a prayer and offering she made called the Act of Oblation to Merciful Love.
 
This is what Fr. Gaitley’s book was about, the Act of Oblation, and my book is about one tiny part of that Act of Oblation, a particular sentence that requests her Eucharistic Miracle. So before we get to the Eucharistic miracle, we need to know a little about Therese’s Act of Oblation to Merciful Love.
 
You may have heard of Saints who’ve offered themselves as victims to God’s justice. St. Therese knew of this type of offering, and it didn’t attract her at all. One night she heard read aloud an obituary notice of a Carmelite nun who had recently died after offering herself as a victim to God’s justice. It prompted Therese to do something very different as she tells us in Story of a Soul. She writes:
 
“This year, June 9, the feast of the Holy Trinity, I received the grace to understand more than ever before how much Jesus desires to be loved. I was thinking about the souls who offer themselves as victims of God’s Justice in order to turn away the punishments reserved to sinners, drawing these punishments upon themselves. This offering seemed great and very generous to me, but I was far from feeling attracted to making it. From the depths of my heart, I cried out: ‘O my God! Will Your Justice alone find souls willing to immolate themselves as victims? Does not Your Merciful Love need them too? On every side this love is unknown, rejected… Is Your disdained Love going to remain closed up within Your Heart? It seems to me that if You were to find souls offering themselves as victims of holocaust to Your Love, You would consume them rapidly; it seems to me, too, that You would be happy not to hold back the waves of infinite tenderness within You. . . Oh my Jesus, let me be this happy victim!’”
 
So Therese, when she was a 22, had this awesome inspiration to offer herself to Merciful Love instead of to Justice, and after she made the offering, she had her sister Celine, who was a Carmelite with her, make it too, and for that she wrote out her Act of Oblation so it would be a formal prayer they could say together. Then she invited others close to her to offer themselves, and here’s one of my favorite reactions:
 
She and her oldest sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, also a Carmelite with her, were out in the fields raking hay, and St. Therese proposed to Marie that she too offer herself to Merciful Love. Marie immediately shot back, “No way! I don’t want to ask for suffering! I hate suffering!” I paraphrase but she was speaking French, so this is a pretty good translation I think! And I love it because I hope I would’ve had the courage to be so direct! I hate suffering too! But it gets better because Therese explained to Marie that this Act was not inviting suffering, but inviting God to pour out His infinite Love that’s been rejected by so many. In the Act of Oblation (and there’s a copy printed in the back of the book) we offer ourselves to receive the Love of God others have rejected, and we ask Him to allow the waves of infinite tenderness shut up within Him to overflow into our souls, and in that way we satisfy His infinite desire to love us. Therese was so convincing that Marie ended up not only making the offering herself, but spending the rest of her life convincing others she wrote to that they should make it too!
 
I first came across the Act of Oblation when I was a student here, and since then I’ve said it hundreds of times, but it’s a long prayer, and over the years I haven’t always said the whole thing. When Fr. Gaitley came along with his book about the Act, his enthusiasm inspired me to try to really pray and mean the whole prayer from beginning to end, every word.
 
And that’s when I became aware of a petition St. Therese makes a few paragraphs into the Act, a petition which somehow I’d never thought about, but now the more I did think about it, the more it stunned me, and the more I realized that she was either totally crazy or she had the most fabulous, outrageous idea in the world. And not only was she asking God for something outrageous, but she wants us to ask for it too, which is why I ended up needing to write a whole book to convince myself and others that this was for real.
 
So what is it she asks?
 
Her petition follows a little argument to convince God why He should give her what she asks, and this is what she says. Are you ready? Therese prays:
 
“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!” 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? [And now here comes the petition:] Remain in me as in a tabernacle and never separate Yourself from Your little victim.”
 
So Therese asks Jesus, and maybe you can see why I blew by this the first few hundred times I said the prayer, because it’s just a little sentence: “Remain in me as in a tabernacle and never separate Yourself from Your little victim.” And now I’m going to explain why, once I really paid attention to what she was asking (and inviting us to ask), I thought either she was crazy or I was.
 
When we receive Holy Communion, we receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity Incarnate. Jesus, true God and true man.
 
There’s another doctrine of our faith that you may have forgotten or may not have learned yet (because there’s so much to learn in life!): When we’re baptized, the Trinity comes to dwell in our souls, and God remains within us always as long as we don’t commit mortal sin, and if we do commit mortal sin, we only have to be sorry and go to confession and promise to try not to do it again, and there’s God, living in us again. This is called the Divine Indwelling, and it’s a mystery we could spend our whole lives pondering!
 
When the Trinity dwells this way in the soul in sanctifying grace, it’s an entirely spiritual indwelling. The Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God, is there, but the Body, Blood, and Soul of Jesus is not in us. Don’t ask me to explain it all – like I said, it’s a mystery :), but I mention it now because it highlights the magnificence of God’s gift to us in Holy Communion when Jesus comes to us not only spiritually in His Divinity, but also physically with the entirety of His human nature.
 
Science tells us it takes about fifteen minutes for us to digest the consecrated host that we receive. Theologians and the Church have always taught, then, that when we receive Holy Communion, Jesus remains in us, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, for about fifteen minutes, until the accidents of the bread (or wine) are gone.
 
So Jesus remains as long as the Sacred Species subsists, or in simpler language, as long as the consecrated host and precious blood remain. When the priest returns the unconsumed consecrated hosts to the tabernacle, Jesus remains in the tabernacle. Children might sometimes picture Jesus locked in the tabernacle, and they’re right, though He’s there under the accidents of bread, and actually that’s another miracle. The first miracle is transubstantiation when the bread and wine become Jesus, really and truly, substantially. The second miracle is that although this is now substantially Jesus, the accidents of bread and wine remain. This is why theology is so important! We need to know what God is doing, at least to the small extent that we can know! (And this is why catechism is so important, because even without theology, the catechism teaches us these basic and all important eternal truths.)
 
Well St. Therese knew all this, not because she was a Doctor of the Church, but because she was Catholic. And because she was madly in love with Jesus (as we pray all Catholics will be!), she wasn’t satisfied with Him remaining in her for just fifteen minutes after Communion. Not only that, but she wasn’t spoiled rotten the way we are – she didn’t have the privilege to receive Him every day (we can even receive Him twice a day!), even though she was a nun! In those days, not so long ago, people had to ask their spiritual director or priest for permission to receive Holy Communion, which usually happened only on big feasts and special occasions. Pope Leo XIII, who was pope in Therese’s lifetime, had given permission for nuns to receive Communion every day, but Therese’s mother superior was against it and didn’t allow it for the community. St. Therese said that when she got to heaven, the community would receive Communion daily and she would change Mother’s mind, and that’s exactly what happened. Two weeks after she died, the nuns in her Carmel were given a new chaplain who immediately gave them permission to receive Holy Communion every day, and instead of being upset, the Mother Superior was happy.
 
But this wasn’t the case in Therese’s years there when she longed to receive Jesus daily. Still, she knew intimately God’s infinite love for her, and she loved Him back tremendously. She abandoned herself to Him like a child asleep in her Father’s arms, she trusted Him to take care of her, and she trusted Him to keep His promises. Jesus promised that whatever we ask the Father in His name, the Father will give us, so Therese asked for what she so much desired. As she said, “I cannot receive You in Holy Communion as often as I desire” – she couldn’t receive Him every day, and I bet even if she could have, fifteen minutes of that total union with Christ would not have been enough for her. So she reminds Him, “Are you not all-powerful?” And finally she asks Him, with the simplicity of a child, to grant her desire and request, because He promised to give us what we asked – and in this case, as we have seen, she asks specifically, “Remain in me as in a tabernacle, never let Yourself be separated from Your Little Victim.”
 
And what does her petition mean? How does He remain in the tabernacle? He remains in His Real Presence, in His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. And that’s exactly how she wants Him to remain in her, not for fifteen minutes, but from one Communion to the next, however long a time passes in between!
 
When I realized what she was saying, I realized I needed to do some research. I thought that if what she asked is possible, there must be some evidence in the history of the Church for other saints having asked for or having experienced this – Jesus remaining in them in His Real Presence between Holy Communions. In the Church, you don’t really want to come up with something totally new. If I had a book on “How Aliens are actually at every Mass and often receiving Holy Communion!” I don’t think I would have been asked to come talk about it to you!
 
So I wanted to find confirmation in the lives of the saints of what St. Therese was asking for…..and in very surprising and sudden ways, I found them: St. Anthony Mary Claret, St. Faustina, and St. Padre Pio, to name three. Just to take one as an example, St. Faustina says very clearly in her diary: “Today I have come to know that Holy Communion remains in me until the next Holy Communion. A vivid and clearly felt presence of God continues in my soul. My heart is a living tabernacle in which the living Host is reserved.” [1302/September 29, 1937]
 
But there’s a difference between these saints’ experience of this miracle and Therese’s experience: As far as I can tell, Jesus revealed this gift to them after He gave it, but none of them had the outrageous childlike boldness to ask for it!
 
And then, there’s another difference between St. Therese and the other saints who experienced this Eucharistic miracle: namely, none of them were wild enough to suggest that we, too, should ask for it!

This is why I love St. Therese – she’s a woman in love, or better yet a woman in love with a Man (in this case also God) whom she knows is madly in love with her, and consequently, she’s entirely daring, confident, and absolutely over the top in her requests to Him, and He answers them all, because unlike an earthly spouse He’s not only all-rich, but all loving and all knowing and all merciful and all giving and all good! Which is why it’s a great thing to realize that Jesus is the spouse of our soul, even if we’re not called to the religious life or consecrated virginity. Even for those of us with a vocation to sacramental marriage, Jesus is the true spouse of our souls, as well as His being the spouse of our husbands’ souls, and He is crazy (St. Catherine of Siena says Drunk!) with love for us, and He’s all good and all powerful, so we have nothing to fear, and everything to request and rejoice in!
 
So – why do I say that Therese is inviting us to ask for this Eucharistic miracle? Because she wants all little souls to make the Act of Oblation, and it includes this petition that Jesus remain in us as in a tabernacle. When her sister Pauline, Mother Agnes in the monastery (though not the same mother superior who forbade daily Communion) was asked during the interviews that are part of the process for canonization, whether Therese meant this request literally, this petition that Jesus remain in her as in a tabernacle, without hesitation Mother Agnes said Yes. And when Therese convinced Marie of the Trinity, a novice she directed, to make this Act, it became even more clear that Therese intended all the petitions in the Act, especially this one, to be confidently requested by those who offered themselves to Merciful Love.
 
Marie of the Trinity is a really important witness to this Something New because when Therese asked her to make the Act of Oblation – and to do it the very next day – at first Marie said yes eagerly, but upon reflection, she told Therese no, she needed more time to prepare because she wasn’t worthy. Therese then responded without hesitation, that THE ONLY condition for making the Act was to realize one was unworthy of it! So Marie was ready! The next day after Mass Therese stayed to pray with Marie and while Marie recited the whole Act of Oblation to Merciful Love, Therese offered her to God.
 
Here's where it gets even more interesting. Later Marie said at the Apostolic Process:
 
“I was so flooded with graces on that beautiful day, the most beautiful day of my life, that all day long I experienced in a very tangible way the presence of the Eucharistic Jesus in my heart. I confided this to Sister Therese of the Child Jesus, who was not at all surprised and answered me simply:
            ‘Is God not omnipotent? If we so desire, it would not be difficult for Him to make His sacramental presence in our souls remain from one Communion to the next. Through this extraordinary feeling that you experienced today, He wishes to give you the pledge that all the requests you have made of Him in the Act of Oblation will be lavishly granted. You will not always enjoy these feelings, but their effects will be no less real. One receives from God as much as one hopes for.’”
 
So, as my husband would say, let’s sum up. So far we’ve seen that St. Therese asked God to remain in her as in a tabernacle. She also encouraged others to ask for this when she encouraged all little souls to offer themselves to Merciful Love. Furthermore, we heard her explain to Marie of the Trinity that to be prepared to make this offering (and in it, to ask Jesus to remain in us in His Real Presence between Holy Communions), we simply need to admit our unworthiness. And finally, when Marie of the Trinity felt the Eucharistic Presence of Christ remaining in her (somewhat like St. Faustina did), Therese assured her this was God’s way of letting us know He’s happy to grant these requests. He’s all powerful, all good, and all loving, so it’s easy for Him to do, and He wants to do it! So let’s go, huh? Let’s all ask for this grace, right?
 
Except….you may be like various friends of mine (and me too), wondering if St. Therese isn’t the only crazy one. I mean great, St. Therese and her holy sisters made this request. They had insanely unheard of graces like the great saints. We don’t have a problem with that. But us? We’re supposed to jump to that height? Isn’t it like trying to imitate St. Simon Stylites and sit on top of a tall pillar for a couple of decades? Or try to bilocate like Padre Pio did?
 
The answer is no, St. Therese wanted to do only things that COULD be imitated, and this was one. Sister Marie of the Trinity explained, decades after she first made the Act, “For me, this grace, more extraordinary it is true than ecstasies, visions, or revelations, can be the lot of little souls, without taking them out of their little way of humility, since it – [that is, having Jesus remain in us as in a tabernacle] – is a grace granted to their humble confidence and which operates in bare faith, therefore safe from pride and vainglory.”
 
Which is great, but you may run up against the problem I have. In the book, I have a whole bunch of objections I answer, but I’ll just mention this one tonight, and you can read about the answers to the others later. My problem is that I can’t even pay attention to Jesus for the fifteen minutes after I receive Him in Holy Communion, so how in the world would it make sense for me to invite Him to remain in me to be ignored the rest of the time? Or do I have to give up all my activities – granted, none of them as exalted as remaining with Jesus, but still, it’s kind of fun to watch a movie with friends, or have dinner, or go to the beach, or even study and be in class, but how can I do these things and ignore Jesus if I’ve asked Him to stay in me? Wouldn’t that be like asking a friend to have coffee with me and then playing with my phone the whole time? (Not that anyone of you would do that, but you get the idea!)
 
I really like this objection because, speaking of summing up, it pretty much sums up my whole life. I’m often so bad at concentrating or even just remembering! And yet, here’s the deal: we can’t let our littleness stop us from accepting God’s love. That pretty much sums up St. Therese’s whole life and message. God loves us infinitely, or to put it in a way we can understand, He’s madly in love with us! He's the best Father in the world, the best spouse in the world, the best brother in the world, and definitely the best friend in the world. He wants so much to be with us all the time as much as He can and love us completely. That’s why He invented the Eucharist! That’s why He insists we go to Mass every Sunday and receive Communion at least once a year – though He’s hoping we’ll get the hint and go way more often and receive Him way more often. And now He’s got this new plan to stay with us in His Real Presence all the time – and believe me, He knows much better than we do how lame we’re going to be about paying attention to Him! But He just wants to be with us, like St. Therese noticed about the parent watching a sleeping child, or to use another image, think of a mother with a nursing infant – he has very little idea what’s going on, but that doesn’t stop the mother from enjoying her baby getting nourishment from her.
 
I also like to remember that our guardian angels are with us all the time and they will adore Jesus remaining in us when we forget or are busy with other tasks. Like that nursing mother, He isn’t worried about us ignoring Him. The whole point of His being Really Present in the Blessed Sacrament is, as St. Therese said, to be with us. She wrote, “It is not to remain in a golden ciborium that He comes to us each day from Heaven; it’s to find another Heaven, infinitely more dear to Him than the first: the Heaven of our soul, made to His image, the living temple of the adorable Trinity.”
 
You might still think this is way beyond you, loving God like St. Therese did, but she sees it differently. She wrote:
 
"How can you ask me if it’s possible for you to love God as I love Him? . . . Ah! I really feel that what pleases God in my little soul is that He sees me loving my littleness and my poverty, the blind hope that I have in His mercy . . . that is my only treasure. Why should this treasure not be yours? . . . Oh, I beg you, understand that to love Jesus, to be His victim of love, the weaker one is, without desires or virtues, the more suited one is for the workings of this consuming and transforming Love . . . Yes, I feel it, Jesus wills to give us the same graces, He wills to give us His Heaven gratuitously." (Letter 197)

*   *   *

I hope that reading this post you've experienced a smidgen of the joy I had in offering it. Let's thank our Heavenly Father for the gift of Jesus, our true Love, and may He remain in us as in so many little (very little) tabernacles! My book, Something New with St. Therese, Her Eucharistic Miracle, goes into much greater detail in my effort to convince myself and you, dear reader, that Jesus wants to remain within us in His Real Presence. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit and I (and the guardian angels) will convince you, too - with or without the help of the book - to try this at home too!

Draw me, we will run!

At that time Jesus said: "I give praise to You, Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, for although You have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, You have revealed them to the little ones. Yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will."  - Matthew 11:25-26

25 years ago today, on World Mission Day 1997, Pope St. John Paul II proclaimed little Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face the 33rd Doctor of the Church. In his nearly 27 year pontificate, he had canonized 482 Saints, but he named only one Doctor, and the youngest Doctor at that. He did so after receiving petitions from the Bishops of the world, and he wrote an Apostolic Letter for the occasion, Divini Amoris Scientia, or, "The Science of Divine Love."

What a glorious gift to the Church is our little sister St. Therese, and what a super-added glory that she is now a Doctor of the Church! I can think of no better way to celebrate than to present here our Holy Father John Paul II's Apostolic Letter on his great gift to us. He has so much to say in explanation of her doctorate that I will place his letter at the end of our post, allowing you to read it at your leisure. For our Holy Father's loving, attentive, merciful, and thorough consideration of St. Therese in anticipation of making her a Doctor of the Church, I am grateful beyond words. Again I can only say, what a marvelous gift to the Church is our little sister and her doctrine and her doctorate!

I must say in my own defense and gratitude that my joy in being "Miss Marcel" is entirely due to Marcel's relationship with his spiritual sister St. Therese - if it were not for her adopting him as her little spiritual brother, I never would have known of him (nor would the world have known of this little Vietnamese Redemptorist brother who lived a hidden life and died at 31 but is now a Servant of God). Therese taught Marcel personally (much of it written in his Conversations for our benefit) what she teaches the rest of us publicly, although she is always happy to teach us quietly in our rooms and, if silently, no less authentically than she has taught not only Marcel but so many others before us.

When I think of what it is she teaches, I think immediately of her Little Way of Spiritual Childhood. In the Process for her beatification, when the Church was conducting interviews with those who knew her, Therese's sister Celine (Sister Genevieve in the Carmel) spoke of her Little Way. The questioners warned her, "Oh, don't speak of some new way! That is the death knell of a cause!" Celine, the intrepid one, answered that the only reason she desired Therese to be proclaimed a saint was so that her Little Way would become famous with her! So if speaking of this Way were to kill the cause, then so be it!

Far from harming the cause, Celine's insistence of Therese's doctrine of the Little Way of Spiritual Childhood was confirmed by Pope Benedict XV when he proclaimed Therese's heroic virtues, and Celine called that the happiest day of her life. Ah, praise God whose mercies are without end!

When I, like Celine, want to share that Little Way with others, I think of two passages in which Therese wonderfully and briefly explained spiritual childhood. First, in answer to her sister Pauline, who became her Mother Agnes in the Carmelite monastery where Therese lived with three of her four living sisters (Pauline, Marie, and Celine; her fourth sister, now Servant of God Leonie, was later to settle as a religious in the Visitation convent of Caen). Second, Therese explained herself beautifully in response to a letter from her oldest sister and godmother Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart. I am delighted to share both of these passages with you now!

First, as recorded in Last Conversations, Mother Agnes had asked Therese (who was in the infirmary and nearing death, or rather her birth into eternal life), "to explain what she meant by 'remaining a little child before God.'" Since remaining a little one is the essence of the Little Way, in her answer St. Therese tells us just what we must do to follow her and please Jesus, Who first told us we must become like little children to enter the Kingdom of God. Therese replied to Mother Agnes:

"It is to recognize our nothingness, to expect everything from God as a little child expects everything from its father; it is to be disquieted about nothing, and not to be set on gaining our living. Even among the poor, they give the child what is necessary, but as soon as he grows up, his father no longer wants to feed him and says: 'Work now, you can take care of yourself.'

"It was so as not to hear this that I never wanted to grow up, feeling that I was incapable of making my living, the eternal life of heaven. I've always remained little, therefore, having no other occupation but to gather flowers, the flowers of love and sacrifice, and of offering them to God in order to please Him.

"To be little is not attributing to oneself the virtues that one practices, believing oneself capable of anything, but to recognize that God places this treasure in the hands of His little child to be used when necessary; but it remains always God's treasure. Finally, it is not to become discouraged over one's faults, for children fall often, but they are too little to hurt themselves very much."

Those words are enough to consider for the rest of our lives, but as with the other Doctors, Therese has more to say! Her teaching is perennial - from the heart of the Gospel and the Sacred Heart of Our Lord - and yet because it is for us, it is suitably simple. Her sister Marie had asked her to explain her Little Way and Therese wrote back a letter which became Manuscript B (or the centerpiece) of her Story of a Soul. Marie loved what Therese wrote but felt it was beyond her powers and so wrote again to Therese. She explained her joy at Therese's holiness and her sorrow at her own lack thereof, just like we might! I love Marie! Here is what Therese responded to Marie's second appeal:

"Dear Sister, I am not embarrassed in answering you . . . How can you ask me if it is possible for you to love God as I love Him? . . . Ah! I really feel that what pleases God in my little soul is that He sees me loving my littleness and my poverty, the blind hope that I have in His mercy . . . that is my only treasure. Why should this treasure not be yours? . . . Oh, dear Sister, I beg you, understand your little girl, understand that to love Jesus, to be His victim of love, the weaker one is, without desires or virtues, the more suited one is for the workings of this consuming and transforming Love . . . let us love our littleness, let us love to feel nothing, then we shall be poor in spirit, and Jesus will come to look for us, and however far we may be, He will transform us in flames of love . . . Oh! how I would like to be able to make you understand what I feel! . . . It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love . . . Since we see the way, let us run together. Yes, I feel it, Jesus wills to give us the same graces, He wills to give us His Heaven gratuitously." (Letter 197)

Oh how good our loving Heavenly Father is, how good our merciful Savior, how good their Holy Spirit of Love who insists on showering us with the roses of Therese's doctrine - Jesus' doctrine - in words we can understand, words of reassurance and consolation.

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

If, however, you are worried about a deficit of confidence, worry no more! I always like to remember that Therese has no need of her huge confidence now - she sees God face to Face and KNOWS what we still must strive to believe. So let us ask her to give to us this astounding and life-changing confidence she needs no more. Little Therese! Little Sister! Give us your confidence that we may reach with our short arms toward the embrace of our Father Who is sure to take pity on us and lift us to Himself!

And as for our other loving Father, Pope St. John Paul II, his feast is coming in just a few days on October 22nd. There is plenty of time for you to join me in finishing a novena to him, and in fact you can do so by reading the next paragraph, which we will make our prayer:

Oh good Holy Father St. John Paul the Second, thank you for all the gifts you gave us in your pontificate on behalf of Jesus, and today we especially thank you for proclaiming our Sister St. Therese a Doctor of the Church. Obtain for us from God a hearty share of her confidence and yours, her love and yours, her faith and yours, her hope and yours. Take care of the many needs that fill our hearts, minds, and lives. We have so many who need miracles - do you and little St. Therese obtain them for us now from the Most Blessed Trinity you behold, and shower these miracles upon us all as so many roses from heaven, passing them to us through the hands of Mary, our Mother. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.

Let's add too a short prayer to the great French Jesuit missionary martyrs whose feast we celebrate today:

Dear Saints John de Brebeuf, Gabriel Lalemant, Isaac Jogues, Rene Goupil, John Lalande, Anthony Daniel, Charles Garnier, and Noel Chabanel, pray for us and for France, for Canada, for the United States - that we may all, by God's grace, convert and return to Him with increased faith, hope, and charity, and ourselves become missionaries of His infinitely merciful love!

And now, I will close with our little Doctor's brilliant prayer from the Song of Songs, the verse she made into the prayer that places before God all those we love and asks for everything they need but without our needing to name every single one every single time! Rather, knowing He can see all those in our hearts, we ask Him to draw each of us, and in drawing us, to draw to Himself all those we love and all those to whom we owe our prayers, who need our prayers, to whom we have promised our prayers, who have asked for our prayers, and on and on. Jesus, make our little hearts big enough to hold the world, as they are somehow big enough to hold You (Whom the world cannot contain) in Holy Communion - and so, in drawing each of us, You will draw to Yourself and Your Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the whole world!

Draw me, we will run!!!

*    *     * 

Divini Amoris Scientia - The Science of Divine Love
Apostolic Letter of His Holiness Pope John Paul II
October 19, 1997

1. THE SCIENCE OF DIVINE LOVE, which the Father of mercies pours out through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit, is a gift granted to the little and the humble so that they may know and proclaim the secrets of the kingdom, hidden from the learned and the wise; for this reason Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit, praising the Father who graciously willed it so (cf. Lk 10:21-22; Mt 11:25-26).
Mother Church also rejoices in noting that throughout history the Lord has continued to reveal himself to the little and the humble, enabling his chosen ones, through the Spirit who "searches everything, even the depths of God" (1 Cor 2:10), to speak of the gifts "bestowed on us by God... in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths in spiritual language" (1 Cor 2:12,13). In this way the Holy Spirit guides the Church into the whole truth, endowing her with various gifts, adorning her with his fruits, rejuvenating her with the power of the Gospel and enabling her to discern the signs of the times in order to respond ever more fully to the will of God (cf. Lumen gentium, nn. 4, 12; Gaudium et spes, n. 4).
Shining brightly among the little ones to whom the secrets of the kingdom were revealed in a most special way is Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, a professed nun of the Order of Discalced Carmelites, the 100th anniversary of whose entry into the heavenly homeland occurs this year.
During her life Thérèse discovered "new lights, hidden and mysterious meanings" (Ms A, 83v) and received from the divine Teacher that "science of love" which she then expressed with particular originality in her writings (cf. Ms B, 1r). This science is the luminous expression of her knowledge of the mystery of the kingdom and of her personal experience of grace. It can be considered a special charism of Gospel wisdom which Thérèse, like other saints and teachers of faith, attained in prayer (cf. Ms C, 36r·).
2. The reception given to the example of her life and Gospel teaching in our century was quick, universal and constant. As if in imitation of her precocious spiritual maturity, her holiness was recognized by the Church in the space of a few years. In fact, on 10 June 1914 Pius X signed the decree introducing her cause of beatification; on 14 August 1921 Benedict XV declared the heroic virtues of the Servant of God, giving an address for the occasion on the way of spiritual childhood; and Pius XI proclaimed her blessed on 29 April 1923. Shortly afterwards, on 17 May 1925, the same Pope canonized her before an immense crowd in St Peter's Basilica, highlighting the splendour of her virtues and the originality of her doctrine. Two years later, on 14 December 1927, in response to the petition of many missionary Bishops, he proclaimed her patron of the missions along with St Francis Xavier.
Beginning with these acts of recognition, the spiritual radiance of Thérèse of the Child Jesus increased in the Church and spread throughout the world. Many institutes of consecrated life and ecclesial movements, especially in the young Churches, chose her as their patron and teacher, taking their inspiration from her spiritual doctrine. Her message, often summarized in the so-called "little way", which is nothing other that the Gospel way of holiness for all, was studied by theologians and experts in spirituality. Cathedrals, basilicas, shrines and churches throughout the world were built and dedicated to the Lord under the patronage of the Saint of Lisieux. The Catholic Church venerates her in the various Eastern and Western rites. Many of the faithful have been able to experience the power of her intercession. Many of those called to the priestly ministry or the consecrated life, especially in the missions and the cloister, attribute the divine grace of their vocation to her intercession and example.
3. The Pastors of the Church, beginning with my predecessors, the Supreme Pontiffs of this century, who held up her holiness as an example for all, also stressed that Thérèse is a teacher of the spiritual life with a doctrine both spiritual and profound, which she drew from the Gospel sources under the guidance of the divine Teacher and then imparted to her brothers and sisters in the Church with the greatest effectiveness (cf. Ms B, 2v-3).
This spiritual doctrine has been passed on to us primarily by her autobiography which, taken from three manuscripts she wrote in the last years of her life and published a year after her death with the title Histoire d'une âme (Lisieux 1898), has aroused an extraordinary interest down to our day. This autobiography, translated along with her other writings into about 50 languages, has made Thérèse known in every part of the world, even outside the Catholic Church. A century after her death, Thérèse of the Child Jesus continues to be recognized as one of the great masters of the spiritual life in our time.
4. It is not surprising then that the Apostolic See received many petitions to confer on her the title of Doctor of the Universal Church.
In recent years, especially with the happy occasion of the first centenary of her death close at hand, these requests became more and more numerous, including on the part of Episcopal Conferences; in addition, study conferences were held and numerous publications have pointed out how Thérèse of the Child Jesus possesses an extraordinary wisdom and with her doctrine helps so many men and women of every state in life to know and love Jesus Christ and his Gospel.
In the light of these facts, I decided carefully to study whether the Saint of Lisieux had the prerequisites for being awarded the title of Doctor of the Universal Church.
5. In this context I am pleased to recall briefly some events in the life of Thérèse of the Child Jesus. Born in Alençon, France, on 2 January 1873, she is baptized two days later in the Church of Notre Dame, receiving the name Marie-Françoise-Thérèse. Her parents are Louis Martin and Zélie Guérin, whose heroic virtues I recently recognized. After her mother's death on 28 August 1877, Thérèse moves with her whole family to the town of Lisieux where, surrounded by the affection of her father and sisters, she receives a formation both demanding and full of tenderness.
Towards the end of 1879 she receives the sacrament of Penance for the first time. On the day of Pentecost in 1883 she has the extraordinary grace of being healed from a serious illness through the intercession of Our Lady of Victories. Educated by the Benedictines of Lisieux, she receives First Communion on 8 May 1884, after an intense preparation crowned with an exceptional experience of the grace of intimate union with Jesus. A few weeks later, on 14 June of that same year, she receives the sacrament of Confirmation with a vivid awareness of what the gift of the Holy Spirit involves in her personal sharing in the grace of Pentecost. On Christmas Day of 1886 she has a profound spiritual experience that she describes as a "complete conversion". As a result, she overcomes the emotional weakness caused by the loss of her mother and begins "to run as a giant" on the way of perfection (cf. Ms A, 44v45v).
Thérèse wishes to embrace the contemplative life, like her sisters Pauline and Marie in the Carmel of Lisieux, but is prevented from doing so by her young age. During a pilgrimage to Italy, after visiting the Holy House of Loreto and places in the Eternal City, at an audience granted by the Pope to the faithful of the Diocese of Lisieux on 20 November 1887, she asks Leo XIII with filial boldness to be able to enter Carmel at the age of 15 years.
On 9 April 1888 she enters the Carmel of Lisieux, where she receives the habit of the Blessed Virgin's order on 10 January of the following year and makes her religious profession on 8 September 1890, the feast of the Birth of the Virgin Mary. At Carmel she undertakes the way of perfection marked out by the Mother Foundress, Teresa of Jesus, with genuine fervour and fidelity in fulfilling the various community tasks entrusted to her. Illumined by the Word of God, particularly tried by the illness of her beloved father, Louis Martin, who dies on 29 July 1894, Thérèse embarks on the way of holiness, insisting on the centrality of love. She discovers and imparts to the novices entrusted to her care the little way of spiritual childhood, by which she enters more and more deeply into the mystery of the Church and, drawn by the love of Christ, feels growing within her the apostolic and missionary vocation which spurs her to bring everyone with her to meet the divine Spouse.
On 9 June 1895, the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, she offers herself as a sacrificial victim to the merciful Love of God. On 3 April of the following year, on the night between Holy Thursday and Good Friday, she notices the first symptoms of the illness which will lead to her death. Thérèse welcomes it as a mysterious visitation of the divine Spouse. At the same time she undergoes a trial of faith which will last until her death. As her health deteriorates, she is moved to the infirmary on 8 July 1897. Her sisters and other religious collect her sayings, while her sufferings and trials, borne with patience, intensify to the moment of her death on the afternoon of 30 September 1897. "I am not dying; I am entering life", she had written to one of her spiritual brothers, Fr Bellière (Lettres 244). Her last words, "My God, I love you", are the seal of her life.
6. Thérèse of the Child Jesus left us writings that deservedly qualify her as a teacher of the spiritual life. Her principal work remains the account of her life in three autobiographical manuscripts (Manuscrits autobiographiques A, B, C), first published with the soon to be famous title of Histoire d'une Âme.


In Manuscript A, written at the request of her sister Agnes of Jesus, then Prioress of the monastery, and given to her on 21 January 1896, Thérèse describes the stages of her religious experience: the early years of childhood, especially the time of her First Communion and Confirmation, adolescence, up to her entrance into Carmel and her first profession.Manuscript B, written during her retreat that same year at the request of her sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, contains some of the most beautiful, best known and oft-quoted passages from the Saint of Lisieux. They reveal the Saint's full maturity as she speaks of her vocation in the Church, the Bride of Christ and Mother of souls.
Manuscript C, composed in June and the first days of July 1897, a few months before her death and dedicated to the Prioress, Marie de Gonzague, who had requested it, completes the recollections in Manuscript A on life in Carmel. These pages reveal the author's supernatural wisdom. Thérèse recounts some sublime experiences during this final period of her life. She devotes moving pages to her trial of faith: a grace of purification that immerses her in a long and painful dark night, illuminated by her trust in the merciful, fatherly love of God. Once again, and without repeating herself, Thérèse makes the light of the Gospel shine brightly. Here we find the most beautiful pages she devoted to trusting abandonment into God's hands, to unity between love of God and love of neighbour, to her missionary vocation in the Church.
In these three different manuscripts, which converge in a thematic unity and in a progressive description of her life and spiritual way, Thérèse has left us an original autobiography which is the story of her soul. It shows how in her life God has offered the world a precise message, indicating an evangelical way, the "little way", which everyone can take, because everyone is called to holiness.
In the 266 Lettres we possess, addressed to family members, women religious and missionary "brothers", Thérèse shares her wisdom, developing a teaching that is actually a profound exercise in the spiritual direction of souls.
Her writings also include 54 Poésies, some of which have great theological and spiritual depth inspired by Sacred Scripture. Worthy of special mention are Vivre d'Amour!... (Poésies 17) and Pourquoi je t'aime, ô Marie! (Poésies 54), an original synthesis of the Virgin Mary's journey according to the Gospel. To this literary production should be added eight Récréations pieuses: poetic and theatrical compositions, conceived and performed by the Saint for her community on certain feast days, in accordance with the tradition of Carmel. Among those writings should be mentioned a series of 21 Prières. Nor can we forget the collection of all she said during the last months of her life. These sayings, of which there are several editions, known as the Novissima verba, have also been given the title Derniers Entretiens.
7. From careful study of the writings of St Thérèse of the Child Jesus and from the resonance they have had in the Church, salient aspects can be noted of her "eminent doctrine", which is the fundamental element for conferring the title of Doctor of the Church.
First of all, we find a special charism of wisdom. This young Carmelite, without any particular theological training, but illumined by the light of the Gospel, feels she is being taught by the divine Teacher who, as she says, is "the Doctor of Doctors" (Ms A, 83v), and from him she receives "divine teachings" (Ms B, 1r). She feels that the words of Scripture are fulfilled in her: "Whoever is a little one, let him come to me.... For to him that is little, mercy shall be shown" (Ms B, 1v; cf. Prv 9:4; Wis 6:6) and she knows she is being instructed in the science of love, hidden from the wise and prudent, which the divine Teacher deigned to reveal to her, as to babes (Ms A, 49r; cf. Lk 10:21-22).
Pius XI, who considered Thérèse of Lisieux the "Star of his pontificate", did not hesitate to assert in his homily on the day of her canonization, 17 May 1925: "The Spirit of truth opened and made known to her what he usually hides from the wise and prudent and reveals to little ones; thus she enjoyed such knowledge of the things above - as Our immediate Predecessor attests - that she shows everyone else the sure way of salvation" (AAS 17 [1925], p. 213).
Her teaching not only conforms to Scripture and the Catholic faith, but excels ("eminet") for the depth and wise synthesis it achieved. Her doctrine is at once a confession of the Church's faith, an experience of the Christian mystery and a way to holiness. Thérèse offers a mature synthesis of Christian spirituality: she combines theology and the spiritual life; she expresses herself with strength and authority, with a great ability to persuade and communicate, as is shown by the reception and dissemination of her message among the People of God.
Thérèse's teaching expresses with coherence and harmonious unity the dogmas of the Christian faith as a doctrine of truth and an experience of life. In this regard it should not be forgotten that the understanding of the deposit of faith transmitted by the Apostles, as the Second Vatican Council teaches, makes progress in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit: "There is growth in insight into the realities and words that are passed on... through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts (cf. Lk 2:19 and 51). It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth" (Dei Verbum, n. 8).
In the writings of Thérèse of Lisieux we do not find perhaps, as in other Doctors, a scholarly presentation of the things of God, but we can discern an enlightened witness of faith which, while accepting with trusting love God's merciful condescension and salvation in Christ, reveals the mystery and holiness of the Church.
Thus we can rightly recognize in the Saint of Lisieux the charism of a Doctor of the Church, because of the gift of the Holy Spirit she received for living and expressing her experience of faith, and because of her particular understanding of the mystery of Christ. In her are found the gifts of the new law, that is, the grace of the Holy Spirit, who manifests himself in living faith working through charity (cf. St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., I-II, q. 106, art. 1; q. 108, art. 1).
We can apply to Thérèse of Lisieux what my Predecessor Paul VI said of another young Saint and Doctor of the Church, Catherine of Siena: "What strikes us most about the Saint is her infused wisdom, that is to say, her lucid, profound and inebriating absorption of the divine truths and mysteries of faith.... That assimilation was certainly favoured by the most singular natural gifts, but it was also evidently something prodigious, due to a charism of wisdom from the Holy Spirit" (AAS 62 [1970], p. 675).
8. With her distinctive doctrine and unmistakable style, Thérèse appears as an authentic teacher of faith and the Christian life. In her writings, as in the sayings of the Holy Fathers, is found that life-giving presence of Catholic tradition whose riches, as the Second Vatican Council again says, "are poured out in the practice and life of the Church, in her belief and prayer" (Dei Verbum, n. 8).
If considered in its literary genre, corresponding to her education and culture, and if evaluated according to the particular circumstances of her era, the doctrine of Thérèse of Lisieux appears in providential harmony with the Church's most authentic tradition, both for its confession of the Catholic faith and for its promotion of the most genuine spiritual life, presented to all the faithful in a living, accessible language.
She has made the Gospel shine appealingly in our time; she had the mission of making the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, known and loved; she helped to heal souls of the rigours and fears of Jansenism, which tended to stress God's justice rather than his divine mercy. In God's mercy she contemplated and adored all the divine perfections, because "even his justice (and perhaps even more so than the other perfections) seems to me clothed in love" (Ms A, 83v·). Thus she became a living icon of that God who, according to the Church's prayer, "shows his almighty power in his mercy and forgiveness" (cf. Roman Missal, Opening prayer, 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time).
Even though Thérèse does not have a true and proper doctrinal corpus, nevertheless a particular radiance of doctrine shines forth from her writings which, as if by a charism of the Holy Spirit, grasp the very heart of the message of Revelation in a fresh and original vision, presenting a teaching of eminent quality.
The core of her message is actually the mystery itself of God-Love, of the Triune God, infinitely perfect in himself. If genuine Christian spiritual experience should conform to the revealed truths in which God communicates himself and the mystery of his will (cf. Dei Verbum, n. 2), it must be said that Thérèse experienced divine revelation, going so far as to contemplate the fundamental truths of our faith united in the mystery of Trinitarian life. At the summit, as the source and goal, is the merciful love of the three Divine Persons, as she expresses it, especially in her Act of Oblation to Merciful Love. At the root, on the subject's part, is the experience of being the Father's adoptive children in Jesus; this is the most authentic meaning of spiritual childhood, that is, the experience of divine filiation, under the movement of the Holy Spirit. At the root again, and standing before us, is our neighbour, others, for whose salvation we must collaborate with and in Jesus, with the same merciful love as his.
Through spiritual childhood one experiences that everything comes from God, returns to him and abides in him, for the salvation of all, in a mystery of merciful love. Such is the doctrinal message taught and lived by this Saint.
As it was for the Church's Saints in every age, so also for her, in her spiritual experience Christ is the center and fullness of Revelation. Thérèse knew Jesus, loved him and made him loved with the passion of a bride. She penetrated the mysteries of his infancy, the words of his Gospel, the passion of the suffering Servant engraved on his holy Face, in the splendour of his glorious life, in his Eucharistic presence. She sang of all the expressions of Christ's divine charity, as they are presented in the Gospel (cf. PN 24, Jésus, mon Bien-Aimé, rappelle-toi!).
Thérèse received particular light on the reality of Christ's Mystical Body, on the variety of its charisms, gifts of the Holy Spirit, on the eminent power of love, which in a way is the very heart of the Church, where she found her vocation as a contemplative and missionary (cf. Ms B, 2r·-3v·).
Lastly, among the most original chapters of her spiritual doctrine we must recall Thérèse's wise delving into the mystery and journey of the Virgin Mary, achieving results very close to the doctrine of the Second Vatican Council in chapter eight of the Constitution Lumen gentium and to what I myself taught in the Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Mater of 25 March 1987.
9. The primary source of her spiritual experience and her teaching is the Word of God in the Old and New Testaments. She herself admits it, particularly stressing her passionate love for the Gospel (cf. Ms A, 83v). Her writings contain over 1,000 biblical quotations: more than 400 from the Old Testament and over 600 from the New.
Despite her inadequate training and lack of resources for studying and interpreting the sacred books, Thérèse immersed herself in meditation on the Word of God with exceptional faith and spontaneity. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit she attained a profound knowledge of Revelation for herself and for others. By her loving concentration on Scripture - she even wanted to learn Hebrew and Greek to understand better the spirit and letter of the sacred books - she showed the importance of the biblical sources in the spiritual life, she emphasized the originality and freshness of the Gospel, she cultivated with moderation the spiritual exegesis of the Word of God in both the Old and New Testaments. Thus she discovered hidden treasures, appropriating words and episodes, sometimes with supernatural boldness, as when, in reading the texts of St Paul (cf. 1 Cor 12-13), she realized her vocation to love (cf. Ms B, 3r-3v). Enlightened by the revealed Word, Thérèse wrote brilliant pages on the unity between love of God and love of neighbour (cf. Ms C, 11v-19r); and she identified with Jesus' prayer at the Last Supper as the expression of her intercession for the salvation of all (cf. Ms C, 34r-35r).
Her doctrine, as was said, conforms to the Church's teaching. From childhood she was taught by her family to participate in prayer and liturgical worship. In preparation for her first Confession, first Communion and the sacrament of Confirmation, she gave evidence of an extraordinary love for the truths of the faith, and she learned the Catechism almost word for word (cf. Ms A, 37r-37v). At the end of her life she wrote the Apostles' Creed in her own blood, as an expression of her unreserved attachment to the profession of faith.
In addition to the words of Scripture and the Church's doctrine, Thérèse was nourished as a youth by the teaching of the Imitation of Christ, which, as she herself acknowledges, she knew almost by heart (cf. Ms A, 47r). Decisive for fulfilling her Carmelite vocation were the spiritual texts of the Mother Foundress, Teresa of Jesus, especially those explaining the contemplative and ecclesial meaning of the charism of the Teresian Carmel (cf. Ms C, 33v). But in a very special way, Thérèse was nourished on the mystical doctrine of St John of the Cross, who was her true spiritual master (cf. Ms A, 83r). It should cause no surprise, then, if she who had been an outstanding pupil in the school of these two Saints, later declared Doctors of the Church, should later become a master of the spiritual life.
10. The spiritual doctrine of Thérèse of Lisieux has helped extend the kingdom of God. By her example of holiness, of perfect fidelity to Mother Church, of full communion with the See of Peter, as well as by the special graces obtained by her for many missionary brothers and sisters, she has rendered a particular service to the renewed proclamation and experience of Christ's Gospel and to the extension of the Catholic faith in every nation on earth.
There is no need to dwell at length on the universality of Thérèse's doctrine and on the broad reception of her message during the century since her death: it has been well documented in the studies made in view of conferring on her the title of Doctor of the Church.
A particularly important fact in this regard is that the Church's Magisterium has not only recognized Thérèse's holiness, but has also highlighted the wisdom of her doctrine. Pius X had already said that she was "the greatest saint of modern times". On joyfully receiving the first Italian edition of the Story of a Soul, he extolled the fruits that had resulted from Thérèse's spirituality. Benedict XV, on the occasion of proclaiming the Servant of God's heroic virtues, explained the way of spiritual childhood and praised the knowledge of divine realities which God granted to Thérèse in order to teach others the ways of salvation (cf. AAS 13 [1921], pp. 449-452). On the occasion of both her beatification and canonization, Pius XI wished to expound and recommend the Saint's doctrine, underscoring her special divine enlightenment (Discorsi di Pio XI, vol. I, Turin 1959, p. 91) and describing her as a teacher of life (cf. AAS 17 [1925], pp. 211-214). When the Basilica of Lisieux was consecrated in 1954, Pius XII said, among other things, that Thérèse penetrated to the very heart of the Gospel with her doctrine (cf. AAS 46 [1954], pp. 404-408). Cardinal Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, visited Lisieux several times, especially when he was Nuncio in Paris. On various occasions during his pontificate he showed his devotion to the Saint and explained the relationship between the doctrine of the Saint of Avila and her daughter, Thérèse of Lisieux (Discorsi, Messaggi, Colloqui, vol. II [1959-1960], pp. 771-772). Many times during the celebration of the Second Vatican Council, the Fathers recalled her example and doctrine. On the centenary of her birth, Paul VI addressed a Letter on 2 January 1973 to the Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux, in which he extolled Thérèse's example in the search for God, offered her as a teacher of prayer and theological virtue of hope, and a model of communion with the Church, calling the attention of teachers, educators, pastors and theologians themselves to the study of her doctrine (cf. AAS 65 [1973], pp. 12-15). I myself on various occasions have had the joy of recalling the person and doctrine of the Saint, especially during my unforgettable visit to Lisieux on 2 June 1980, when I wished to remind everyone: "One can say with conviction about Thérèse of Lisieux that the Spirit of God allowed her heart to reveal directly to the people of our time the fundamental mystery, the reality of the Gospel.... Her 'little way' is the way of 'holy childhood'. There is something unique in this way, the genius of St Thérèse of Lisieux. At the same time there is the confirmation and renewal of the most basic and most universal truth. What truth of the Gospel message is really more basic and more universal than this: God is our Father and we are his children?" (Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, vol. III/1 [1980], p. 1659).
These simple references to an uninterrupted series of testimonies from the Popes of this century on the holiness and doctrine of St Thérèse of the Child Jesus and to the universal dissemination of her message clearly express to what extent the Church, in her pastors and her faithful, has accepted the spiritual doctrine of this young Saint.
A sign of the ecclesial reception of the Saint's teaching is the appeal to her doctrine in many documents of the Church's ordinary Magisterium, especially when speaking of the contemplative and missionary vocation, of trust in the just and merciful God, of Christian joy and of the call to holiness. Evidence of this fact is the presence of her doctrine in the recent Catechism of the Catholic Church (nn. 127, 826, 956, 1011, 2011, 2558). She who so loved to learn the truths of the faith in the catechism deserved to be included among the authoritative witnesses of Catholic doctrine.
Thérèse possesses an exceptional universality. Her person, the Gospel message of the "little way" of trust and spiritual childhood have received and continue to receive a remarkable welcome, which has transcended every border.
The influence of her message extends first of all to men and women whose holiness and heroic virtues the Church herself has recognized, to the Church's pastors, to experts in theology and spirituality, to priests and seminarians, to men and women religious, to ecclesial movements and new communities, to men and women of every condition and every continent. To everyone Thérèse gives her personal confirmation that the Christian mystery, whose witness and apostle she became by making herself in prayer "the apostle of the apostles", as she boldly calls herself (Ms A, 56r·), must be taken literally, with the greatest possible realism, because it has a value for every time and place. The power of her message lies in its concrete explanation of how all Jesus' promises are fulfilled in the believer who knows how confidently to welcome in his own life the saving presence of the Redeemer.
11. All these reasons are clear evidence of how timely is the Saint of Lisieux's doctrine and of the particular impact her message has had on the men and women of our century. Moreover, some circumstances contribute to making her designation as a Teacher for the Church of our time even more significant.
First of all, Thérèse is a woman, who in approaching the Gospel knew how to grasp its hidden wealth with that practicality and deep resonance of life and wisdom which belong to the feminine genius. Because of her universality she stands out among the multitude of holy women who are resplendent for their Gospel wisdom.
Thérèse is also a contemplative. In the hiddenness of her Carmel she lived the great adventure of Christian experience to the point of knowing the breadth, length, height and depth of Christ's love (cf. Eph 3:18-19). God did not want his secrets to remain hidden, but enabled Thérèse to proclaim the secrets of the King (cf. Ms C, 2v·). By her life Thérèse offers a witness and theological illustration of the beauty of the contemplative life as the total dedication to Christ, Spouse of the Church, and as an affirmation of God's primacy over all things. Hers is a hidden life which possesses a mysterious fruitfulness for spreading the Gospel and fills the Church and the world with the sweet odour of Christ (cf. LT 169, 2v).
Lastly, Thérèse of Lisieux is a young person. She reached the maturity of holiness in the prime of youth (cf. Ms C, 4r). As such, she appears as a Teacher of evangelical life, particularly effective in illumining the paths of young people, who must be the leaders and witnesses of the Gospel to the new generations.
Thérèse of the Child Jesus is not only the youngest Doctor of the Church, but is also the closest to us in time, as if to emphasize the continuity with which the Spirit of the Lord sends his messengers to the Church, men and women as teachers and witnesses to the faith. In fact, whatever changes can be noted in the course of history and despite the repercussions they usually have on the life and thought of individuals in every age, we must never lose sight of the continuity which links the Doctors of the Church to each other: in every historical context they remain witnesses to the unchanging Gospel and, with the light and strength that come from the Holy Spirit, they become its messengers, returning to proclaim it in its purity to their contemporaries. Thérèse is a Teacher for our time, which thirsts for living and essential words, for heroic and credible acts of witness. For this reason she is also loved and accepted by brothers and sisters of other Christian communities and even by non-Christians.
12. This year, when the centenary of the glorious death of Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face is being celebrated, as we prepare to celebrate the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, after receiving a great number of authoritative petitions, especially from many Episcopal Conferences throughout the world, and after accepting the official petition, or Supplex Libellus, addressed to me on 8 March 1997 by the Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux, as well as from the Superior General of the Discalced Carmelites of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and from the Postulator General of the same order, I decided to entrust the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which has competence in this matter, with the special study of the cause for conferring the title of Doctor on this Saint, "after hearing the opinion of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding the eminent doctrine" (Apost. Const. Pastor Bonus, n. 73).
After the necessary documentation had been collected, the two above-mentioned Congregations addressed the question in the meetings of their respective consultors: the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on 5 May 1997, with regard to the "eminent doctrine", and the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on 29 May of the same year, to examine the special "Positio". On the following 17 June, the Cardinals and Bishops who are members of these Congregations, following a procedure approved by me for this occasion, met in a plenary interdicasterial session and discussed the cause, giving a unanimously favourable opinion on granting the title of Doctor of the Universal Church to St Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. I was personally informed of this opinion by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and by the Pro-Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Archbishop Alberto Bovone, titular Archbishop of Caesarea in Numidia.
In view of this, on 24 August last, during the Angelus prayer in the presence of hundreds of Bishops and before a vast throng of young people from around the world, gathered in Paris for the 12th World Youth Day, I wanted personally to announce my intention to proclaim Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face a Doctor of the Universal Church during the celebration of World Mission Sunday in Rome.
Today, 19 October 1997, in St Peter's Square, filled with faithful from every part of the world, and in the presence of a great many Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops, during the solemn Eucharistic celebration I proclaimed Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face a Doctor of the Universal Church in these words: Fulfilling the wishes of many Brothers in the Episcopate and of a great number of the faithful throughout the world, after consulting the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and hearing the opinion of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding her eminent doctrine, with certain knowledge and after lengthy reflection, with the fullness of Our apostolic authority We declare Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, virgin, to be a Doctor of the Universal Church. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
This having been duly enacted, We decree that this Apostolic Letter is to be religiously preserved and to have full effect both now and in the future; furthermore, it is thus to be judged and defined as right, and whatever to the contrary may be attempted by anyone, on whatever authority, knowingly or unknowingly, is null and void.
Given in Rome, at St Peter's, under the Fisherman's ring, the 19th day of the month of October in the year of the Lord 1997, the 20th of the Pontificate.

"I feel certain that my mission will not come to an end upon my death, but will begin. O doubting souls, I will draw aside for you the veils of heaven to convince you of God's goodness . . . God is Love and Mercy."  -St. Faustina (Diary, 281)

Happy Feast of St. Faustina, another little secretary (like our Marcel) who devoted herself, at Our Lord's specific request, to cataloguing His mercies to her and the whole world!

A wonderful Polish priest of my acquaintance recently reminded me that a novena can begin on the Feast day of a Saint, rather than leading up to the Feast. This is good news in October, when the feasts are flying fast and, if not furious, at least fabulously! We have had our two Saint Therese days (October 1 in the new calendar, October 3 in the old calendar and in Nigeria) flanking the guardian angels day (we salute you, dear companions, though your feast was hidden behind the Sunday), then yesterday came the inimitable Francis of Assisi, so beautiful in his simplicity, humility, and poverty, and now St. Faustina, on our way to the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary on October 7 - which date can begin our novena to the big Teresa (of Avila). Whew! That's a lot of feasting!

And so, in case you are still holding intentions close to your heart, let's start a novena to St. Faustina today! I'm offering two prayers (and you can say one or both), and then a third for emergencies - prayers which Jesus loved and taught to us through St. Faustina. He promises us, "By your entreaties, you and your companions shall obtain mercy for yourselves and for the whole world." And if we are doubtful of our abilities (humility is truth!), He continues, "Do not fear; I Myself will make up for everything that is lacking in you." (Diary, 435)

Our first prayer is so simple and so awesomely powerful. Jesus said to Faustina:

"When you say this prayer, with a contrite heart and with faith on behalf of some sinner, I will give him the grace of conversion. This is the prayer:

"O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of Mercy for us, I trust in You."  (Diary, 186-187)

So for all those we are praying for in the matter of conversion, whether from scratch or as a return to the Faith, the Church, and the Sacraments where Jesus longingly awaits them . . . we have the perfect prayer!

Our second prayer is the Divine Mercy Chaplet itself. A quick refresher on how to say the chaplet:

Using the Rosary:

1. Begin with the Sign of the Cross on the Crucifix, then say the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Apostles’ Creed.

On the beads of the five decades, say the following:
      2. On the Our Father beads,
Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.
       3. On the ten Hail Mary Beads,
For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
Repeat step 2 and 3 for all five decades.
       4. Conclude with (three times):
Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.

Jesus told Faustina that the Chaplet of Divine Mercy can obtain everything! Faustina herself saw proof of this assurance when one afternoon, in the midst of a terrible drought, she decided to say the Chaplet to bring rain. She prayed it and prayed it and prayed it throughout the afternoon until - God sent the needed rain that day! 

We've been talking about showers of roses around here lately. I hope you've received some, but let's not give up asking for more - Faustina saw literal showers, and we can ask for spiritual showers. This will cover all our intentions beyond (and including, but we have that awesome short prayer Jesus gave us already) the conversion and reversion of all to the Faith. How about health and miraculous healing, freedom from addiction, hope where there is despair, consolation in the wake of loss of a loved one, jobs for those who need them, and so on and so forth - the list can seem so big, but God's mercy is so much bigger than all of our lists and needs!

What I love is that Jesus' message to St. Faustina is so similar to what He taught St. Therese, which the Little Flower in turn (along with Jesus and Mary) taught to Marcel Van. It is a consoling message full of His merciful love to us, the smallest of His children. Here is how He explained it one day to Faustina, and it delights me that the Holy Spirit is using this passage again to explain Jesus' doctrine to us on her feast. Faustina wrote:

Today during Holy Mass, I saw the Infant Jesus near my kneeler. He appeared to be about one year old, and He asked me to take Him in my arms. When I did take Him in my arms, He cuddled up close to my bosom and said, "It is good for Me to be close to your heart."

"Although You are so little, I know that You are God. Why do You take the appearance of such a little baby to commune with me?"

"Because I want to teach you spiritual childhood. I want you to be very little, because when you are little, I carry you close to My Heart, just as you are holding Me close to your heart right now." (1481)

Ah, yes, let us be little just like little Jesus! He is passionate about carrying us close to His Heart and about making things easier for us by doing the heavy lifting Himself! And when, sometime in these next nine days, you are able to receive Him in Holy Communion, hold Him close to your heart and kiss Him interiorly, adore Him with gratitude, and feel Him holding on to you too in return, covering you with kisses unceasingly, for He loves you so infinitely much!

If my counting is right, we'll be saying our St. Faustina novena from today until October 13th, the day of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima in 1917. Praise God, Whose timing (and His Mother's) are always perfect!

St. Faustina, pray for us and pray with us as we entrust everything to Jesus' Merciful Love. Thank you for writing so much for us, and remember your promise to keep fulfilling your mission. 

Oh, and that third prayer, the emergency one? As you may have noticed, we here at Miss Marcel's Musings are all about little. So if this turns out to be another little novena for you (taking the shorter prayers, forgetting them altogether at times, joining us later than when we've begun, etc.), here is the shortest prayer Our Master taught Faustina, and the one He loves perhaps the best, seeing as He had it inscribed on His Merciful Image:
​
Jesus, I trust in You!

If we spend these next nine days with a "Jesus, I trust in You!" in our hearts and occasionally on our lips, how happy Faustina will be that her mission continues in us!

Draw me, we will run!

"God does not demand great actions from us, but simply surrender and gratitude." 
                                                                                                 --St. Therese, Story of a Soul

We have arrive​d! It is the feast of our dear Little Flower, the very littlest St. Therese who wants to shower us with roses today and every day until she helps us take that last step into Heaven. But first, before anything else, let's finish our novena to her. 

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,
ask God to grant us the favors
we now place with confidence in your hands . . . 

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

*    *    *
If you are just joining us, welcome! If you have been praying each day, welcome! If you prayed on day 1 and then forgot - all the more welcome! I have been commending your intentions to our dear Sister each day, and I've asked our Guardian Angels to fill in all the particulars. St. Therese is so desirous of dropping down boatloads of roses that we don't want to leave anyone or any need out, and you can be sure that she who promised to come down has no "intention" of her own to forget you. Look for roses - she is near!

I have loved St. Therese for a very long time, but before that I was quite indifferent to her. There was a statue of her in the parish church I attended growing up, and this statue was right across from a statue of the Infant of Prague, both in the narrow entry you passed through walking into the church, both facing each other, and both kind of annoying to me. I had no idea who they were or what they wanted - and what a good joke on me that they were later to reveal their identities. They were Jesus and His dear Therese, and they wanted nothing more nor less than to draw me to Him through her!

One thing I love about Servant of God Marcel Van, for whom my blog and I are named, is that he, too, thought nothing of Therese when he first came across her. He picked up Story of a Soul, saw there were no pictures, and sighed, saying to himself here was another perfect saint who no doubt mortified herself a great deal, performed many miracles in her life, and died at a ripe old age. He started reading the book, was enthralled, and realized his own picture of her was completely wrong!

So I wonder today what you might be thinking of Therese, what you might have thought of her, and how things have changed. I wonder what she's done in your life, what she's doing now, and what she's planning to do. I can assure you that she's planning a lot, no matter what's gone on so far for you (and for you and her). And it is all good, it is all grace!

For Marcel, she taught him personally her Little Way of how to love God and be loved by Him. For me, after many other graces, she introduced me to Marcel so I too could learn from her, and especially from Jesus and Mary, through their hilarious, insightful, sometimes deep, sometimes silly, and utterly endearing chats in his Conversations. But what it always turns out that makes this book so wonderful for me is that I find in it a commentary on the Gospels and on St. Therese's writings (which are themselves a commentary on the Gospels). I am so dopey, goofy, forgetful, and Marcellian (for he was dopey, goofy, and quite forgetful too) that I need constant reminders of what Jesus desires of us, such as Therese explains in the quote with which I started this post: "God does not demand great actions from us, but simply surrender and gratitude."

Really? Surrender and gratitude? That's it? That's a plan I can at least aim for. We've lowered the bar to a place I can reach, because surrender means admitting I can't do it, and gratitude means admitting He can (and so often has). I like this program a lot.

The other day I was lucky enough to be praying before the Blessed Sacrament with Marcel at hand, and I flipped to a page in Convos where Jesus is speaking to him (and to us). After explaining to Marcel that humility consists in recognizing and following the truth, Our Lord adds:

"Nevertheless, I do not wish you to understand all the words that Love says to you because that is not necessary for you. All the same I have a means which can allow you to understand: this means consists in loving me and abandoning yourself to me in total confidence." (Conversations, 429)

Something about this passage, which I had read before more than once, suddenly rung a bell. This sounded a lot like, hmmm, like . . . something from St. Therese . . . from Story of a Soul, maybe?

Well, yes, as it turned out! In the middle section of Story of a Soul, the part written for her sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, Therese turns to Jesus and bursts out,

"O 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. But why do I desire to communicate Your secrets of Love, O Jesus, for was it not You alone who taught them to me, and can You not reveal them to others? 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 don't know about you, but TOTAL confidence feels far beyond me. Nonetheless, as I've written in my book Something New with St. Therese: Her Eucharistic Miracle, we can't let a little thing like our weakness get in the way of what God wants to do in us. In this case, He wants us simply to acknowledge our weakness and let Him carry us! When we find ourselves struggling, like a toddler who is tired and doesn't want to be held, though that is what he most needs, I think the easiest way out of our restless failure to surrender is to ask St. Therese and Marcel to help us do what they did, what Jesus taught them to do, what He wants to teach us to do (or better yet, what He wants to do in us) - namely, to let go and let God. To surrender. To relax. To sleep or nap a while. To look upon Him as our Father who wants to give us everything and will take care of everything for us. It's all easy for Him - He is omnipotent, and even better, He loves us infinitely, just as we are!

A case in point - today's blog post. I wanted to share so much more with you, but the feasts are too short and too full for me to write everything I would, so I'm going to surrender and trust that Jesus is feeding you with what is already written. And better yet, I'm going to trust that He's given Therese and Marcel even more heavenly graces with which to shower us on this day and in the days ahead. May your minutes, your hours, your days and weeks and months and years be filled with the fragrance of her roses and her near presence, and I pray you enjoy the love of God to the full. As a friend once told me she did, let's ask God to NOT let us be surprised by how good He is when we get to Heaven! Let's learn now how much He loves us and snuggle closer to His merciful Sacred Heart. He has it all covered, everything we possibly need, and the same for those we love and those we don't even know yet - He is Love! So relax, have a cupcake (or your own delightful equivalent), and let's thank God for letting us know Him and His little dear daughter and son, our sister Therese and our brother Marcel. Thank You, Jesus! We love You! Come and stay with us! Remain in us as in a tabernacle, and never separate Yourself from Your little victims!

(And if that last line is unfamiliar to you, I highly recommend Something New with St. Therese, Her Eucharistic Miracle!)

Draw me, we will run!