Thank You Jesus, for Everything!

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

"After my death, I will let fall a shower of roses. I will spend my heaven doing good upon earth." (Therese to her sisters)

"What most draws down graces from our dear Lord is gratitude, for if we thank Him for a gift, He is touched and hastens to give us ten more, and if we thank Him again with the same sincerity, what an incalculable multiplication of graces! I have experienced this: try it and you will see. My gratitude is for all He gives me is boundless, and I prove this to Him in a thousand ways." (Therese to Celine)

How was your Thanksgiving?
I hope it was lovely, but if it had regrettable moments, or if you are just plum wore out, let's set all that aside and start fresh . . . Did you know that Jesus does not ask great actions from us, but just surrender and gratitude? And even for little tiny souls, surrender and gratitude are possible! 

In our last episode we were saying a novena to Therese for all priests, bishops, and the Holy Father, and all our intentions, and we finished on or around St. Raphael Kalinowski's feast on November 19, hidden behind the Sunday, or November 20, as it is celebrated in Poland.

Well despite my hopes to write a post for the end of that novena and more fun anecdotes about St. Raphael (who apologized to the Carmel of Lisieux in 1902 for having doubted their little sister Therese and the universality of her message, and then proceeded to make amends by getting her Story of a Soul translated into Polish), what mostly happened this week was shopping. The grocery store on Monday. Trader Joe's on Tuesday. Costco on Wednesday . . . and now, before I know it, Thanksgiving is over and I've got a new slate of prayer intentions - well some old and some new.

There's nothing quite as dear as the old, familiar prayer intention - like wrapping ourselves in a warm blanket we can snuggle up to Jesus' merciful Heart, immerse ourselves in HIs Mercy, and as if we're doing all this in a dimly lit bar we can't stop returning to despite ourselves, we can say to Jesus the Divine Bartender, "I'll have the usual!"

And then, just when we think He Who knows our intentions and hearts and hurts so well has gone majorly deaf, He will hand us what we're asking for - the miracle we've been seeking for years. A father-in-law who allows Jesus to come to him after 60 plus years apart . . . the brother we pray will return to the Church and the sacraments becomes entirely converted in the Heart of the Church in Thailand . . . that "character defect" we've been struggling with for years is suddenly removed by Him in the blink of an eye . . . a child we love who has been suffering is healed . . . the cross that seems to crush us is at last and with great sweetness lifted and tossed to the ends of the earth while Jesus stays with us to make sure we're okay after all . . . we wake up one morning to find a renewed joy and energy and lo and behold, the sun is shining again!

All things are possible with God, and so when you wake up to remember that your cross is still waiting for you or a new one has been delivered faster than amazon or Domino's could manage it, don't despair, simply take Therese at her word and God at His . . .

Let's ask, so we will receive! Let's say together right now, "Jesus, I trust in You, Jesus, thank You for everything!" and then let's turn to the saint of His Heart, the Little Flower who promised to fill our lives with flowers, who promised to Come Down (not just watch over and help from Heaven but really come right down into the thick of it beside us). 

We can say the short version of our novena to her:

Little Flower in this hour show your power!

Or we can give it the longer version:

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

O Little Flower of Jesus,
please ask God to grant the favors I now place with confidence in your hands . . . that all our priests, bishops, and the Holy Father may become great saints,
and for all the intentions we hold in our hearts.

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

There!
We're already a ninth of the way there, and if you fear you'll forget, let's make it a Mother Teresa "do it now" St. Therese novena - 


Little Flower in this hour show your power!

Little Flower in this hour show your power!

Little Flower in this hour show your power!

Little Flower in this hour show your power!

Little Flower in this hour show your power!

Little Flower in this hour show your power!

Little Flower in this hour show your power!

Little Flower in this hour show your power!

Little Flower in this hour show your power!

Amen!

I'm going to try and keep going for another eight days, and that will be for your intentions as well as mine! That will take us to . . . the Vigil of St. Francis Xavier, if I've done my finger counting right!

Meanwhile, speaking of feasts and Saints, that imp Marcel from whom we take our name (that would be Marcel Van, but while I'm thinking of it, let's toss into our novena all the other Marcels we can think of - just sharing the name of our sweet brother is a grace for them, and may it bring them on his coattails - or rather on the tail of his too tight soutane - straight to Heaven into Jesus' loving eternal "My turn!" From mimes to priests to a freshmen at my alma mater, though she's a Marceline, may we who bear his name be blessed with gratitude and surrender!) - wow, that was a long parentheses, but now that we're out, let's get back to the point - that imp Marcel almost let me forget it's the day of his compatriots today!

Happy feast of St. Andrew Dũng Lạc, and his companions, Martyrs. The Vatican tells us: "A young convert and priest gives his name to a group of 117 martyrs of his land, courageous witnesses to Christ whose blood was the seed of the Church in Vietnam. Their collective feast day is celebrated on November 24." And just for the record, they were martyred in the years 1850 to 1852.

Our friends at Franciscan Media have told their story this way for us:

Andrew Dung-Lac, a Catholic convert ordained to the priesthood, was one of 117 people martyred in Vietnam between 1820 and 1862. Members of the companions group gave their lives for Christ in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, and received beatification during four different occasions between 1900 and 1951. All were canonized during the papacy of Saint John Paul II.
Christianity came to Vietnam through the Portuguese. Jesuits opened the first permanent mission at Da Nang in 1615. They ministered to Japanese Catholics who had been driven from Japan.
Severe persecutions were launched at least three times in the 19th century. During the six decades after 1820, between 100,000 and 300,000 Catholics were killed or subjected to great hardship. Foreign missionaries martyred in the first wave included priests of the Paris Foreign Mission Society, and Spanish Dominican priests and tertiaries.
In 1832, Emperor Minh-Mang banned all foreign missionaries, and tried to make all Vietnamese deny their faith by trampling on a crucifix. Like the priest-holes in Ireland during English persecution, many hiding places were offered in homes of the faithful.
Persecution broke out again in 1847, when the emperor suspected foreign missionaries and Vietnamese Christians of sympathizing with a rebellion led by of one of his sons.
The last of the martyrs were 17 laypersons, one of them a 9-year-old, executed in 1862. That year a treaty with France guaranteed religious freedom to Catholics, but it did not stop all persecution.
By 1954, there were over a million Catholics—about seven percent of the population—in the north. Buddhists represented about 60 percent. Persistent persecution forced some 670,000 Catholics to abandon lands, homes and possessions and flee to the south. In 1964, there were still 833,000 Catholics in the north, but many were in prison. In the south, Catholics were enjoying the first decade of religious freedom in centuries, their numbers swelled by refugees.
During the Vietnamese war, Catholics again suffered in the north, and again moved to the south in great numbers. Now reunited, the entire country is under Communist rule.
*   *   *

My husband and I once lived in "the South" - we are so grateful for those years with such great and dear friends and such good work and Jesus - but it took me a while to figure out even the basics of North and South. I think I got it down, who was the blue, who was the gray, and why every street was named either Stonewall or Jackson or Stonewall Jackson . . . but you are here to witness my latest geographic and historic idiocy (I have a blonde soul, I used to say, and now that I have highlights it's migrating outward): Only in that last sentence above the asterisks did I totally realize there is no longer North and South Vietnam. 

Maybe that's because for me it's about Love. If you could see the sunrise over the mountains out my window you'd understand. And in love, there is always north and south, kind of like there are the wheat and the tares in the Kingdom, or the City of God and the City of Man still mixed up until that last day when the trumpet sounds and Padre Pio can go into Heaven and Therese can finally rest. Oh yeah, and Jesus comes and we get to party forever - or gaze forever, depending on your propensity.

Well, let's pray so we all get there. I have my holy hacks and ways around losing any souls, and I have at least a smidge of Therese's insane confidence because it's true: prayer is SO powerful over His infinitely tender and eternally merciful Heart. Ha! I love it! We pray so He can do what He does and pour mercy over the whole world! What a fun game He's invented!

Time to go to Mass where I'm going to pray for YOU!
May He fill us always with the fullness of His Love, and before that first kiss that lands us smack in the center of the eternal adorable abode called Heaven, let's do our best to keep kissing Him - feet, knees, side, hands, FACE!

St. Andrew and all your companions including Venerable Cardinal Francis Xavier van Thuan and your little Servant of God Marcel Van, pray for us and bring us to Jesus with joy and gratitude! Quickly!


Draw me, we will run!