From our Padre to little Therese

Have all your dreams come true? Have all your prayers been answered? Have all the miracles comes knocking at your door like a land shark???

I am not usually given mystical charisms like Padre Pio was (and St. Therese wasn't), but I hear the echo of a dozen - nay, a few hundred! - hearts answering me loud and clear from the four corners of the world, and I am hearing a resounding NO, NO, a triple times NO!

Well do not despair! That's why we have our triple novena, so that our good God has a third time (the charm) to fulfill your dreams, to answer your prayers, and to send miracles straight to your doorstep as if you ordered them on Prime!

We are on the last day of our novena to Padre Pio, and the first day of our novena to St. Therese (the final of our three novenas, so we're almost there!), and if you are getting tired or discouraged, are just finding us now, or wonder if you ever want to say a novena again, I recommend reading the text in the Padre Pio photo above. No, wait, don't scroll back up. I can give it to you here:

"I assure you that when the Lord calls me, I will say to Him: Lord, I shall remain at the gates of Paradise; I shall enter only when I have seen the last of my spiritual children enter."

I hope you've had the chance to ask Padre Pio to accept you as his spiritual child, but whether you've done it early and often (like voting in Chicago) or hesitated because he seems a bit scary or you have enough fathers already (do any of us?), I urge you to go for it. Most wonderfully, Padre Pio has also promised to take on as his spiritual children all those who are beloved by his already-adopted-spiritual children! That means all your people will be taken care of, and you can get on with the important business of not being afraid, not worrying about anything anymore ever, as Our Lord has commanded, asked, exhorted, reminded, and invited us to do over and over.

Here then is our closing prayer:

Padre Pio, take me as your spiritual child! I am here, you are here, you promised, and I need help. Amen!

There, now that we're finished with that piece of business, let's get to the beginning of our St. Therese novena. This way if time runs out, you're covered and have a quick way of getting through these next nine days to our Day of Days: St. Therese Day on October 1st! 

Here's our opening prayer:

Little Flower in this hour show your power!

If you're new here at Miss Marcel's Musings, that may sound like a pretty hippy-dippy prayer to you. 
I sure thought it was straight out of the 60s when I learned it from some friends who'd been catechized in those years (and have gone on to run a faithful Catholic college, a grad school, a study abroad in Rome program, and some amazing international pilgrimages . . .), but boy was I mistaken to think their short and effective prayer was a product of their youth. I have written about the amazing Archbishop Benziger and the origins of "Little Flower in this hour show your power"  HERE (click on HERE to read all about it), so suffice it to say now that those in desperate straits have been praying this pithy prayer for almost 100 years!

If you like a more meaty (or in this case more floral) prayer, here is our other favorite:

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

O Little Flower of Jesus,
please ask God to grant us the favors
we now place with confidence in your hands . . . 

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

*     *     *

And now, before closing this post to go feast, Marcel is urging me to write a few funny stories about our hero and heroine - that is, Padre Pio and St. Therese.

First, then, on this day, the day when Jesus gave Padre Pio his first Kiss, the one that landed him in Heaven (or at least at the pearly gates he refused to enter), let me share a story about Padre Pio. This is the famous Rice Krispie incident which I wrote about previously HERE in an article about both Padre Pio and his little spiritual sister and guide Therese, but for our purposes now I'll just give you the facts:

Padre Pio was eating breakfast one morning when someone asked him for a relic. Padre Pio was fully alive, body and soul still well attached to each other, and he was a little put out (though certainly used to it) that someone wanted a relic. It is true that sometimes he acted fiercely because nutty women like me would snip off pieces of his habit. Had he not yelled, he certainly would have been a liability to the monastery tailor! Nonetheless, he was a funny guy, and he responded with perfect aplomb to this breakfast time request. He picked a Rice Krispie out of his cereal bowl and handed it across the table. “Here’s a relic!” he said with a smile (and I like to think somewhere it is still venerated).

You can see why I love this man!

As for Therese, since we're just starting out toward her feast, I think it would make sense to give a story illustrating her interest in getting lazy little Jesus to answer our prayers (finally!), an anecdote about a miracle that will inspire us with her own boundless confidence. Let's see . . . 

Oh! I just thought of the perfect little history . . . it's about a boy who almost didn't exist, but thanks to two women begging St. Therese, a third woman became a mom for the second time. Whew, what a way I have of making the simplest things complicated! Let's start at the beginning.

Once upon a time (true story, by the way), a young man and young woman got married. They loved Jesus and each other, got married in the Church, and looked forward to having lots of children.

God smiled on them and gave them, after two years of marriage, a bouncing baby boy they (naturally) named Joseph Anthony.

Eleven years passed and the young man and young woman were not quite so young, nor was the baby. We will now call them Papa A and Mama A and Son A.

Well, Mama A's own mama was going with her best friend (Mama A's "Aunt J") on a trip to France, so they told Mama A, "We will go to Lisieux and ask St. Therese to send you another baby!"

So they did.
And several months later, what was the joy (only Heaven knows, although Miss Marcel is beginning to cry just remembering that Heavenly joy) when Mama A found out that she was to be a Mama of another bouncing baby! She told Papa A and  - well, actually she didn't tell him. She walked toward him with the news in her heart (and apparently somehow on her face) and he wrapped her in a huge, tall hug and they both wept (while smiling). She said, "How did you know?" and he said, "You had that look on your face!"

This was important news to Mama A. She, like most women, had never known for sure if her man had even ever really noticed her expressions, changing rapidly like many women's expressions do. Now she knew that he did love her and did notice her face because, after all, she'd only had this look on her face once before, and eleven years before at that!

When Mama A and Papa A told Son A that they were expecting a new addition to the family, Son A fell back on the couch (which was luckily right behind him when they told him) and said, "I must be dreaming!" It was Heaven for the whole family. Son A was certain it would be a boy, so he had no fears. 

When Mama A went to the awesome Catholic doctor she was lucky enough to live near, he let her know that her due date was . . . October 1st!

Mama A said to Papa A, "What are the chances?" She was in awe. It was the work of St. Therese all right! It was the answer to her mama and auntie's prayers all right!

Papa A responded, "One in three hundred and sixty-five!" but to this day Mama A knows it was one in a million (as far as the due date) even if the chances of that prayer in Lisieux being answered were about one in one. St. Therese is very happy to oblige us, if only we will ask!

As it turned out, Son B (yes, Son A's prayers were answered too) was born NOT on St. Therese's feast day that year, but about a novena early, on the feast of St. Padre Pio! This worked out well for the whole family: Mama A could still celebrate St. Therese day without mucking it up with lots of little (and later big) boys at a birthday party for Son B, while Son B could have not only St. Therese but Padre Pio as a very important patron saint. And finally, Papa A and Son A could join Mama A and Son B in a big feast every year on the feast of St. Padre Pio! This year, there will be Daughter in Law A and Grandbaby A joining too, and so they lived happily ever after . . .even while Son B became the publishing house (imagine a boy being a house!) of Roughhouse Magazine! Mama A is so pleased that all the literary love she poured into Son B is finding its way to the hearts and minds and wriggling bodies of boys all over the country. If you have a boy in your life and haven't yet subscribed him to Roughhouse, Padre Pio may just be urging you to do so today!

But wait . . .we said they all lived happily ever after. But what about poor Pio?

There he is, our Padre, the very one we are feting, and yet he is seemingly celebrating much less than might be expected, precisely because he promised to stay out of Paradise until all his spiritual children have entered. Humph, as Son B used to say at quite a young age (exhibiting his genius even at only two years!) . . .But wait! I hear something.

Listen. Can you hear it too?

There is the angelic, heavenly music drifting down . . . there is St. Peter saying, "Come in, Padre, at least today!" and there is Padre Pio replying, "Oh no, Pete, you go ahead, I'll be in soon enough. Why don't you take the day off for once and I'll watch the door."

"Thanks," says St. Peter. "You're a brick!"

Then silence.
But listen harder . . . do you hear it?
Only a whisper, but even through the Italian accent I hear it clear as a bell:

"Shhhh, quietly children. Hurry up - yes, you too, run! - come on in! No, he's not here, hurry up . . . "

Good job Padre! We can't wait to take our turn, but meanwhile, we'll have chocolate cake, or a cappuccino and cornetto, or a glass of wine to celebrate your happy first real Kiss from Jesus, our Love. Thank you for leading us from Blessed Mother to St. Therese! 

​Draw me; we will run!