A Prayer for Priests by St. Therese

O Jesus, Eternal Priest, keep your priests within the shelter of your Most Sacred Heart, where none can touch them.  Keep unstained their anointed hands, which daily touch your Sacred Body.  Keep unsullied their lips daily tinged with your Precious Blood.  Keep pure and unworldly their hearts, sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood.  Let your Holy Love surround and protect them from the world’s contagion.  Bless their labors with abundant fruit, and may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and consolation here, and their everlasting crown in the hereafter.  Amen.

-St. Therese of the Child Jesus

Hat tip to Morning Rose Prayer Garden!

Morning Prayer of Saint Therese of Lisieux

“Oh my God!  I offer You all my actions of this day for the intentions and for the glory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  I desire to sanctify every beat of my heart, my every thought, my simplest works, by uniting them to His infinite merits; and I wish to make reparation for my sins by casting them in the furnace of His merciful love.

Oh my God!  I ask of You for myself and for those dear to me the grace to fulfill perfectly Your holy will, to accept for love of You the joys and sorrows of this passing life, so that we may one day be united together in Heaven for all eternity.  Amen.”   

                                                 St. Therese of Lisieux 

Novena Rose Prayer to St. Therese

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 the favors

I now place with confidence

in you hands

( mention your special prayer request here )

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

Words of St. Therese during her final illness

"I am not dying; I am entering life."

The Last Conversations-

Saint Therese’ of Lisieux

St. Thérèse de Lisieux on Small Sacrifices

“Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.” 

― St. Thérèse de Lisieux

A Prayer for Priests by St. Therese of Lisieux

A Prayer for Priests
By St. Therese of Lisieux

O Jesus, eternal Priest,
keep your priests within the shelter of Your Sacred Heart,
where none may touch them.

Keep unstained their anointed hands,
which daily touch Your Sacred Body.

Keep unsullied their lips,
daily purpled with your Precious Blood.

Keep pure and unearthly their hearts,
sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood.

Let Your holy love surround them and
shield them from the world's contagion.

Bless their labors with abundant fruit and
may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and consolation here and in heaven their beautiful and
everlasting crown. Amen.

The miracle that allowed for the canonization of St. Therese of Lisieux's parents

SS. Louis & Zelie Martin: Parents of St. Therese of Lisieux

The following comes from Salt and Light:

“The good Lord gave me a father and a mother more worthy of Heaven than of earth”.

These words come to us from Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Carmelite nun and youngest daughter of Louis and Zélie Martin. Their names will soon be added to the book of saints next October during the Synod on the Family. They are the first couple to be canonized together. A holy couple, their story has a modern twist.

Louis and Zélie Martin met on the Saint Leonard Bridge in Alençon, France. It was an unexpected encounter. Both had previously contemplated entering the religious life. But as it became clear neither one of them were called to a life of celibacy, they vowed to offer their future marriage to God. When Zélie saw Louis, she heard a voice tell her this man was the one God had prepared for her. This conviction deepened the more they spent time together. They got married three months later on July 13^th, 1858. Zélie was 27 years old and Louis 35.

Zélie already managed her own lacemaking business which she started at only 20 years old. She regularly received clients who needed her skillful hand to create or repair pieces of lace. She eventually opened a lacemaking factory that allowed her to take in apprentices. Her business was thriving. Apart from her leadership and goodwill, Zélie was an anxious woman. This is a character trait she attributed to her difficult childhood.

But if Zélie dealt with worry, Louis on the other hand was a gentle and patient man.  His talent lied in clock making.  He also held his own shop. Louis got into the trade starting at 19 years of age. Despite his excellent reputation, he retired from the clock making business to dedicate himself to his wife’s lacemaking factory, by becoming its client manager and bookkeeper. 

Career wasn’t everything to them. They were as much accomplices in their marriage as in their work. Both desired a holy marriage. They considered virginity to be an invaluable virtue even between husband and wife and so they practiced abstinence their first years of marriage. They had nine children, four of which died at a very young age. Louis and Zélie raised five girls, Pauline, Céline, Léonie, Marie, and Thérèse. They raised them in the faith and inspired in them charity and holiness. All of them eventually joined the Carmelites, except Léonie who joined the Sisters of the Visitation.

The Martins did face challenges, namely sickness. It started with Zélie when she was diagnosed with cancer. The pain intensified every day, without any hope of a cure, until she died at the age of 46. Through her suffering, Zélie held fast to prayer and patiently accepted God’s will and wisdom.

“If the Virgin Mary does not heal me, it is because I have done my time and that the good Lord wants me to find rest elsewhere” (last letter from Zélie to her brother Isidore Guerin, August 16^th, 1877).

Some years after the death of his wife, Louis also fell ill. He had periods of forgetfulness or hallucinations and attacks of paralysis. After several episodes, he was taken to an asylum. He stayed there three years before going back home. Despite his evident weakness, he showed great strength, patience and perseverance.

Read the rest here.

The miracle behind the canonization of the parents of St Therese of Lisieux

(CNA/EWTN News).- Seven-year-old Carmen has an extraordinary story. Because of her Blessed Louis Martin and Zelie Guerin, the parents of Saint Therese of Lisieux, will be canonized this Sunday in Saint Peter's Square.

The little girl was born prematurely in Spain in 2008 at just six months into pregnancy. She was fighting for her life for several weeks because of a cerebral hemorrhage and other severe ailments.  

But her loved ones and many Carmelite sisters sought the miraculous intervention of the Martins. The Vatican recognized the baby’s healing as miraculous.

Little Carmen’s parents, her mother Carmen and her father Santos, have told her story in an exclusive interview with CNA.

“We’re just another family who received this miracle with open arms, as you'd expect. But we and Carmen are normal people like anybody else,” Santos said.

The baby Carmen is now seven years old.

“Our daughter was born at hardly six months gestation, after a pregnancy with many complications, and her organs were very underdeveloped. Complications set in right away: cerebral hemorrhage, bacterial infection … her situation was getting worse to the point we were extremely worried,” Santos explained.

Both parents were both going through “a terrible situation.”  

“For some parents dealing with such a dramatic situation it would stir up feelings of helplessness, grief, guilt and despair...on top of that we had a five year old son and we were trying to keep this situation from affecting him,” Santos said.

The doctors told them to prepare for the worst. Every day had major significance.

“Carmen was getting worse and worse,” her father said. She was so weak that for 35 days her parents could not even so much as touch their daughter in order to avoid infecting her.

Read the rest here!

Fr. James Martin, S.J. on St. Therese of Lisieux

Pope Francis and St. Therese

(CNA/EWTN News) Pope Francis on several occasions has spoken of his strong devotion to the Little Flower saint as well as his habit of asking her for favors: favors, his former press secretary says, which have often come in the form little miracles.

One of those miracles came Aug. 7, 2010, when the then-cardinal Bergoglio was accompanied by his press secretary, Federico Wals, to celebrate Mass honoring St. Cajetan on his feast day.

The cardinal was set to celebrate a Mass at the saint’s shrine in Buenos Aires and then walk to greet a long line of pilgrims, as he did every year.

“When leaving he told me that he had already asked Santa Teresita (St. Therese of Liseux) to send him a sign,” Wals said in an interview with Bolivian newspaper “El Deber” published May 31.

“When he told me this I was very skeptical and asked myself ‘A sign?’”

The former press secretary for Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio – now Pope Francis – gave an interview to El Deber in which he detailed personal stories and memories from his time working with the then-archbishop of Buenos Aires.

Located on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, the Shrine of St. Cajetan draws thousands of pilgrims each year on the feast of his death.

Mass is celebrated each hour on the Aug. 7 feast, and after attending faithful queue and wait as long as 10 hours to pass in front of a small statue of the saint and kiss the glass separating it from them.

As archbishop of Buenos Aires then-cardinal Bergoglio would preside over a Mass himself, and then walk down the line of pilgrims – which sometimes extended 15 blocks – to greet people, speak with them and bless the children.

That day in 2010 “he didn't feel very well, but we were going to go anyway,” Wals said, explaining that Bergoglio had asked St. Therese to send him a sign as to whether to go all the way or not, since after the Mass he had to walk 15 blocks down the line of faithful.

After celebrating Mass the cardinal was in too much pain to walk the whole distance, and decided to go just two blocks before heading back to the center of Buenos Aires, Wals recalled.

However, as they reached the second block Wals said they came across a man “taller than (the cardinal), dressed with a black overcoat and he had his right hand inside the coat.”

Before they could blink the man “pulled out a white rose,” he said, explaining that Bergoglio was “surprised,” blessed the rose and tried to move out of the way.

At that moment the man told the future Pope “you don't understand anything: this is the sign that you are waiting for.” He then smiled and handed Bergoglio the rose.

Once Bergoglio heard what the man said he immediately grabbed the rose, Wals said. The cardinal then told him, “Federico, Santa Teresita did not abandon me, I'm going to walk until the end of the line (of faithful).”

“At that moment the man disappeared, we never saw each other again. Bergoglio's countenance changed, he was radiant and continued until the end.”

Wals has met with Bergoglio since his election as Bishop of Rome, and said that as Pope, other similar things have happened.

One of them took place in January while the Pope was on his way to the Philippines. During his flight from Sri Lanka to Manila Pope Francis received a bas-relief, or carving, of St. Therese from French journalist Caroline Pigozzi.

After receiving the image, Francis told other journalists present that “I have the habit, when I don't know how things will go, to ask St. Therese the little child, St. Therese of Jesus, to ask her if she takes a problem in hand, some thing, that she send me a rose.”

“I asked also for this trip, that she'd take it in hand and that she would send me a rose. But instead of a rose she came herself to greet me,” he said.

Pigozzi spoke with CNA later, saying that she had originally found the image in a Paris flea market, and had polished it herself to give to the Pope as part of a set for Christmas and for his Dec. 17 birthday.

Pope Francis to canonize St. Therese’s parents

The following comes from CatholicPhilly via CNS:

Pope Francis is expected to canonize Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin, the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux, during the world Synod of Bishops on the family in October.

Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, leading a conference Feb. 27 on the role of saints in the life of the church, announced that “thanks be to God, in October two spouses, parents of Saint Therese of Lisieux, will be canonized.”

Blessed Louis and Marie Zelie Guerin Martin were married in 1858. The couple had nine children, but four of them died in infancy. The five who survived — including St. Therese — all entered religious life. Zelie Martin died of cancer in 1877, at the age of 45; her husband died when he was 70 in 1894.

The couple was beatified in 2008. They are believed to be the first parents of a saint to be beatified, highlighting the important role parents play in their children’s human and spiritual upbringing.

Following normal Vatican procedures, before their canonization the pope would have to recognize a miracle that occurred after prayers for the couple’s intercession before God. The decree is expected to be signed before Easter.

The next step would be for the pope to consult with the church’s cardinals and hold a consistory with cardinals present in Rome to announce the decision to proceed with the ceremony during the world Synod of Bishops on the family Oct. 4-25. A Vatican official said that meeting probably would take place in June.

According to the Lisieux shrine’s website, a miracle being studied for the couple’s canonization involves a little girl in the Diocese of Valencia, Spain. Born prematurely and with multiple life-threatening complications, Carmen suffered a major brain hemorrhage, which could have caused irreversible damage. Her parents prayed for the couple’s intercession. The little girl survived and is healthy.

Pope Francis has a special devotion to St. Therese. The pope used to keep a photo of the 19th-century French Carmelite nun on his library shelf when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires. He has said that when he has a problem, he asks St. Therese “not to solve it, but to take it in her hands and help me accept it.” As a sign that she’s heard his request, he said, “I almost always receive a white rose.”

Before opening the October 2014 meeting of the extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family, Pope Francis venerated the relics of St. Therese, her parents and another couple, Blessed Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi; the relics were brought to Rome specifically for prayers during the bishops’ discussions about family life.

Pope Francis Preaches on St. Thérèse: Charity Without Humility Is Sterile

The following comes from the NCR:

On the feast of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Pope Francis praised the saint for her exemplary humility and meekness, praying that the newly formed council of cardinals would emulate her virtues in their upcoming meetings.

The Pope concelebrated his Oct. 1 daily Mass with the group of eight cardinals who are meeting through Thursday to discuss reforming the Curia.

In his homily, Pope Francis voiced hope that the cardinals’' meetings will help them all to become more humble and to trust in God, so that the Church is able to give a beautiful witness to the world.

Reflecting on the Gospel of the day, in which the apostles sought to call down fire upon those who did not accept them, the Holy Father said that the path of Christians is not a “path of vengeance.” He said, instead, that it is the way of humility and meekness.

In light of the feast of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, a French Carmelite nun who lived in the late 1800s, the Pope encouraged those present to meditate on “this spirit of humility, of tenderness,” which, he said, is a spirit that God “wants from all of us.”

This spirit, he said, can only be found “in love, in charity, in the awareness that we are in the hands of the Father.”

Once Christians understand this, said the Pope, they will no longer desire to “call down fire from heaven.”

“Another spirit comes, that of that charity that suffers all, pardons all; that does not boast, that is humble, that doesn’t seek itself,” he said. Noting that some might say this understanding of charity lowers the “majesty” and “greatness” of man, Pope Francis said that thiseir approach “is sterile.”

“The Gospel reaches its highest point in the humiliation of Jesus: humility that becomes humiliation,” he said, adding that the force of the Gospel “is properly in humility, in the humility of the child that is guided by the love and the tenderness of the Father.”

The Holy Father praised the Church for naming St. Thérèse (also known as the “Little Flower”) a doctor of the Church and patron of missions. He added the words of Benedict XVI, that the “Church does not grow through proselytism,” but, rather, “through attraction, through witness.”

“When the people see this witness of humility, of meekness, of mildness, they feel the need that the prophet Zachariah spoke of: ‘We want to come with you,’” he said.

“Charity is simple,” said the Pope. “Worship God, and serve others.”

Concluding his homily with a special mention of the meetings being held with the council of cardinals, Pope Francis asked the Lord that, through their work, they will become more humble, meek, patient, and trusting in God.

The Holy Father asked that this occur, “so that the Church can give a beautiful witness to the people; and seeing the people of God, seeing the Church, they might feel the desire to come with us.” 

Pope Francis’ White Rose and St. Therese

The following comes from Andrea Tornielli at Vatican Insider:

Bergoglio, who has always considered the flower a “sign” of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and of her intercession, received one out of the blue, the day after the peace vigil for Syria

On Sunday 8 September, the day after the long prayer vigil for peace in Syria – when some passages from texts written by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux were read out – Pope Francis received a white rose as a surprise. Francis considers the flower to be a “sign” linked to the devotion of the saint. The Archbishop of Ancona and Osimo, Edoardo Menichelli broke the news, with Francis authorisation.

Bergoglio told him about the rose a day before the prelate was due to present a book in Pedaso, in the Italian region of Marche. The prelate recounted the story during the presentation. The book presented was an essay by theologian and writer Gianni Gennari entitled “Teresa di Lisieux. Il fascino della santità. I segreti di una dottrina ritrovata” (“Thérèse of Lisieux. The fascination of sainthood. Secrets of a rediscovered doctrine”) and published by Lindau. This was the book Francis took with him when he flew to Brazil last July.
  

“The Pope told me he received the freshly-picked white rose out of the blue from a gardener as he was taking a stroll in the Vatican Gardens on Sunday 8 September,” Mgr. Menichelli said. “The Pope sees this flower as a “sign”, a “message” from Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, whom he had turned to in a moment of worry the day before.” The Archbishop passed on the Pope’s greetings to those attending the book presentation, adding that he had been authorised to tell them about the rose.  The Pope did not say anything about the white rose having any connection to the peace vigil for Syria the previous evening. But it is not hard to imagine that one of the Pope’s worries at the time was the international situation, the massacres in Syria and the West’s proposed intervention in the Middle Eastern country.

What significance does the white rose have for the Pope? Bergoglio mentions it in “El Jesuita” (“The Jesuit”), a book interview written by Sergio Rubin and Francesca Ambrogetti when he was still a cardinal. In a description the two journalists give of Bergoglio’s library in Buenos Aires, they write: “We pause before a vase full of white roses standing on a shelf in the library. In front of it is a photograph of Saint Thérèse. “Whenever I have a problem,” Bergoglio explained to the journalists, “I ask the saint not to solve it, but to take it into her hands and to help me accept it and I almost always receive a white rose as a sign.” Pope Francis’ devotion for the Carmelite mystic who died at the young age of 24 in 1897, was canonized by Pius XI and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by John Paul II in 1997, is common knowledge.  Francis himself told journalists about it on the flight back from Rio de Janeiro after World Youth Day. When she was still alive, Thérèse had promised that when she died she would shower “rose petals” down from the sky, a sign of her intercession. "A soul inflamed with love can not remain inactive … If only you knew what I plan to do when I’m in heaven … I will spend my heaven by doing good on earth.” So during the peace vigil held in St. Peter’s Square on 7 September, the mysteries of the rosary were recited along with passages from the Gospel and verses from a piece of poetry written by the saint.
 

The rose devotion and message did not begin with Bergoglio. On 3 December 1925 Fr. Putigan, a  Jesuit, began a novena to ask for something very important. He also asked for a sign, to know whether his prayers had been heard. He asked for a rose to be sent to him. He didn’t speak to anyone about the novena or about the unusual request he made to the saint. Then, in the third day of the novena he received the rose he had asked for and his prayer was therefore answered. He then started another novena and on the fourth day of this prayer, a nurse/nun brought him a white rose and said to him: “Saint Thérèse sends you this rose.” So the Jesuit decided to spread the word about this “miraculous” novena which he named after the roses, making it famous worldwide.

Archbishop Chaput: Preparing for the Journey of Lent 2013

The following comes from Zenit.org:

More than 70 years ago the great French Catholic writer Georges Bernanos published a little essay called “Sermon of an Agnostic on the Feast of St. Théresè.”  Bernanos deeply loved the Church, but he could also be brutally candid when it came to himself and his fellow believers.  Above all, he had a piercing sense of irony about the comfortable, the self-satisfied and the lukewarm who postured themselves as Catholic – whether they were laypeople or clergy.

In his essay he imagined “what any decent agnostic of average intelligence might say, if by some impossible chance the [pastor] were to let him stand awhile in the pulpit [on] the day consecrated to St. Théresè of Lisieux.”

“Dear brothers,” says the agnostic from the pulpit, “many unbelievers are not as hardened as you imagine. … [But when] we seek [Christ] now, in this world, it is you we find, and only you. … It is you Christians who participate in divinity, as your liturgy proclaims; it is you ‘divine men’ who ever since [Christ’s] ascension have been his representatives on earth. … You are the salt of the earth.  [So if] the world loses its flavor, who is it I should blame? … The New Testament is eternally young.  It is you who are so old. … Because you do not live your faith, your faith has ceased to be a living thing.”

Bernanos had little use for the learned, the proud or the superficially religious.  He believed instead in the little flowers – the Thérèses of Lisieux – that sustain the Church and convert the world by the purity, simplicity, innocence and zeal of their faith.  That kind of innocent faith is a gift.  It’s a gift each of us can ask for, and each of us will receive, if we just have the courage to choose it and then act on it.  The only people who ever really change the world are saints.  Each of us can be one of them.  But we need to want sainthood, and then we need to follow the path that comes with it.

Bernanos once wrote that the optimism of the modern world, including its “politics of hope,” is like whistling past a graveyard.  It’s a cheap substitute for real hope and “a sly form of selfishness, a method of isolating [ourselves] from the unhappiness of others” by thinking happy or seemingly progressive thoughts.  Real hope “must be won.  [We] can only attain hope through truth, at the cost of great effort and long patience. … Hope is a virtue, virtus,strength; an heroic determination of the soul.  [And] the highest form of hope is despair overcome.”

We can only attain hope through truth.  And what that means is this:  From the moment Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life,” the most important public statement anyone can make is “Jesus Christ is Lord.”

This year, Ash Wednesday falls on February 13.  It marks the beginning of Lent.  For Catholics, this is a time to be honest; to take an unblinking look at the truth of our lives.  Every year God offers us this great season of humility as a chance to remember who we are as believers, reflect soberly on our actions and refocus ourselves on the source of our hope, the only real hope of a bloody and despairing world:  Jesus Christ.  We do this through prayer, silence, the sacrament of penance, seeking out and reconciling with those whom we’ve hurt, forgiving those who’ve hurt us, generosity to the poor, and fasting, not just from food, but from all those many things that distract us from the God who made and loves us.

If we call ourselves Christians, then let’s live like we mean it – beginning today, with thisLenten season; so that people who look upon us will see the presence of Jesus Christ instead.