St. Mother Teresa's parting advice

Last night at the tale end of St. Mother Teresa's feast, I looked for her Collect and found a treasure trove. It turns out that when Holy Mother Church chose the liturgical readings to accompany her feast, she gave us Mother Teresa's last letter, written just a few hours before she died on September 5, 1997. And what a letter it is!

What moved me most in this most moving of letters was the conclusion. In the final words Mother wrote, words of gratitude which the Church now presents to us every year in the liturgy, we find her joyfully pointing us to none other than her patron saint and inspiration, St. Therese, the Little Flower!

I was stunned. The first part of Mother's letter contains a wealth of good counsel, most notably her reminder to her sisters (and now to us) of our route to Jesus through Mary. But then she takes the next step along the Little Way and thanks God for the gift of St. Therese and her newly announced Doctorate. I would have been simply delighted to find that Mother Teresa herself delighted, hours before she went to join her patroness, in the news of St. Therese's impending honors, but to find that the Church has captured and saved these words - not just as a snapshot or memory, but as a liturgical text! - has filled my cup to overflowing.

I think the best way to give you this treasure chest is not to show you its gems one by one, but simply to hand the whole thing over. Here, then, for your enrichment and delectation, is the second reading of the Office of Readings for the Divine Office (Liturgy of the Hours) of September 5th, St. Mother Teresa's feast:

 My dearest Children,

This brings you Mother’s love, prayer and blessing that each one of you may be only all for Jesus through Mary. I know that Mother says often–“Be only all for Jesus through Mary”–but that is because that is all Mother wants for you, all Mother wants from you. If in your heart you are only all for Jesus through Mary, and if you do everything only all for Jesus through Mary, you will be a true Missionary of Charity. Thank you for all the loving wishes you sent for the Society Feast.

We have much to thank God for, especially that He has given us Our Lady’s spirit to be the spirit of our Society. Loving Trust and Total Surrender made Our Lady say “Yes” to the message of the angel, and Cheerfulness made her to run in haste to serve her cousin Elizabeth. That is so much our life--saying “Yes” to Jesus and running in haste to serve Him in the poorest of the poor.

Let us keep close to Our Lady and she will make that same spirit grow in each one of us. September 10th is coming very close. That is another beautiful chance for us to stand near Our Lady, to listen to the Thirst of Jesus and to answer with our whole heart. It is only with Our Lady that we can hear Jesus cry, “I Thirst”, and it is only with Our Lady that we can thank God properly for giving this great gift to our Society.

Last year was the Golden Jubilee of Inspiration Day, and I hope that the whole year has been one of thanksgiving. We will never come to the end of the gift that came to Mother for the Society on that day, and so we must never stop thanking for it. Let our gratitude be our strong resolution to quench the Thirst of Jesus by lives of real charity–love for Jesus in prayer, love for Jesus in our Sisters, love for Jesus in the poorest of the poor–nothing else.

And now I have heard that Jesus is giving us one more gift. This year, one hundred years after she went home to Jesus, Holy Father is declaring Little Flower to be a Doctor of the Church. Can you imagine–for doing little things with great love the Church is making her a Doctor, like St. Augustine and the big St. Teresa! It is just like Jesus said in the Gospel to the one who was seated in the lowest place, “Friend, come up higher.”

So let us keep very small and follow Little Flower’s way of trust and love and joy, and we will fulfill Mother’s promise to give saints to mother Church.

*    *     *

"We will never come to the end of the gift . . . and so we must never stop thanking for it."

These 19 words from St. Mother Teresa constitute my new spiritual maxim. How true! How wise! How encouraging a little way this is! For as St. Therese puts it, our own Doctor encouraging us to become saints as she encouraged Mother Teresa before us:

"Jesus does not demand great actions from us, but simply surrender and gratitude." (Story of a Soul)

And since God's love is infinite, since He is goodness itself and goodness is diffusive of itself, since His mercies never end, but in fact are new every morning, there are more gifts (and thus more gratitude) in our near future . . . 

Tomorrow, Sunday, September 7, 2025, the solemn Canonization Mass for Blessed Carlo Acutis and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati will take place at 10:00 a.m. in St. Peter's Square, Rome. That's 4:00 a.m. for East Coasters and 1:00 a.m. for West Coasters. Apparently, you can watch the event via livestream through Vatican News or EWTN, or alternatively, in line with another liturgical text, since "He pours gifts on His beloved while they slumber," you can dream happily of the canonization while you sleep (or simply sleep like a rock) and wake to find two new saints lighting the Little Way for us.

I'm thrilled to announce that with the delay of first Carlo's canonization and then Pier's, and finally with their dual canonization happening tomorrow, Holy Mother Church has given us a special double anointing to consecrate the Return of the Triple Novena!

Yes, tomorrow will begin our novena from September 7 (day of canonization of Saints Pier Giorgio and Carlo) to September 15, Our Lady of Sorrows, on which day we'll begin our second novena leading from Our Lady of Sorrows (Sept. 15) to St. Padre Pio (Sept. 23). Then on Padre Pio's day (Sept. 23) we'll begin our third novena to Our Guiding Star, Little St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, to end on her feast (October 1st), perhaps in exhaustion, but certainly in exhilaration over all our answered prayers and the miracles raining down like roses around us for our families, our friends, and the Church and the world!

If that looked, sounded like, or felt like a lot of gobbledy-gook and a jumble of dates and feasts and too many novenas, sit back and relax (or close the computer and go for a nice, brisk walk), and leave the details to us. We here at Miss Marcel's Musings started this mess of a triple novena, and it's up to us to finish it. 

As always, we'll be praying for ALL your intentions, and the terms of the Triple Novena, like Calvinball from Calvin and Hobbes of yore, while not quite ever-changing, have a few innovative aspects worth noting. First, just by reading this, you are enrolled! Second, by saying one of the prayers or even a simple, "Help, please" shot up toward Heaven, you're considered to have participated in the whole thing. And third, well worth repeating, Every Single One of your intentions ever - those you remember, those you've forgotten, and those yet to come - will be included in our prayers.

We won't make this complicated, despite the sound of it, because in the words of our little Doctor St. Therese, "Prayer is a burst from the heart, it is a simple glance thrown toward Heaven, a cry of thanksgiving and love in times of trial as well as in times of joy." 

We plan to have one prayer for the whole 25 days (and see how we've made our triple novena, which you'd think would be 3 x 9, so 27 days, come out even littler!), and I'm hoping by the end to have memorized it, though I doubt I'll manage that since I seem to put one more thing in my little Pooh brain only to have something else fall out the other side!

We'll officially begin tomorrow, but if you want to get a jump on things, or simply read to the end of this post, here is our time-honored and well-proven Triple Novena prayer. 

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

Draw me; we will run!

p.s. I almost forgot: here is a LINK (just click on LINK) to the rest of Mother Teresa's liturgical texts. It is stunningly beautiful how the Church chooses the favorite gospels and messages from the saints to adorn their feasts and inspire us to follow their lead . . . St. Mother Teresa, pray for us!