St. Therese’s feast day will be celebrated on Sunday October 1st 2017 at St. Therese Parish Denistone. In the weeks leading up to the feast day, prayer petition cards will be made available for parishioners to write their petitions and on the feast day everyone is invited to offer their prayers by placing the cards in a basket in front of the statue of St. Therese. Parishioners are invited to bring a rose to Mass on this weekend and a vase will be available for them to be placed in before Mass. After 9.30am Mass we will have morning tea with a big cake in the Parish gardens.
Short biography
St. Therese, the Little Flower, was a French Carmelite nun in Lisieux who died of tuberculosis at the young age of 24. She was born in 1873, died in 1897, and was proclaimed to be the 33rd Doctor of the Church in 1997. Her mother died when she was only 4 years old. Her older sister, Pauline became a second mother.
Her suffering
Therese became seriously ill suffering fits of fever, trembling and cruel hallucinations. None of the treatments helped. Then, on May 13, 1883, Therese turned her head to a statue of the Virgin near her bed, and prayed for a cure. “Suddenly” Therese writes, “….Mary’s face radiated kindness and love.” Therese was cured. The statue has since been called “Our Lady of the Smile.”
Her determination
When she was 15 and too young to enter the Carmelite Monastery, she pleaded her case before Pope Leo XII himself, who told her that if God willed it, she would indeed enter the monastery at such a young age. God did will it, as enter it she did.
The Little Way…
St. Therese translated “the little way” in terms of a commitment to the tasks and to the people we meet in our everyday lives. It meant to do little things everyday for God and others. She took her assignments in the convent of Lisieux as ways of manifesting her love for God and for others. In living out her life of faith she sensed that everything that she was able to accomplish came from a generous love of God in her life.
Some quotes from St. Therese
My whole strength lies in prayer and sacrifice, these are my invincible arms; they can move hearts far better than words, I know it by experience.
(Story of A Soul, Chapter X)
Prayer is, for me, an outburst from the heart; it is a simple glance darted upwards to Heaven; it is a cry of gratitude and of love in the midst of trial as in the midst of joy! In a word, it is something exalted, supernatural, which dilates the soul and unites it to God.
(Story of A Soul, Chapter X)
I desire no sensible consolation in loving; provided Jesus feel my love that is enough for me. Oh! to love Him and to make Him loved…how sweet it is…
(V letter to Mother Agnes of Jesus)
How sweet is the way of Love! True, one may fall, one may not be always faithful, but Love, knowing how to draw profit from all, very quickly consumes whatsoever may displease Jesus, leaving nothing but humble and profound peace in the innermost soul.
(Story of A Soul, Chapter VIII)
There is one ONLY THING to do here below: to love Jesus, to win souls for Him so that He may be loved. Let us seize with jealous care every least opportunity of self sacrifice. Let us refuse Him nothing – He does so want our love!
(VI letter to her sister Celine)
The good God does not need years to accomplish His work of love in a soul; one ray from His Heart can, in an instant, make His flower bloom for eternity…
(VI letter to her sister Celine)
Love can supply for length of years. Jesus, because He is Eternal, regards not the time but only the love.
(V letter to Mother Agnes of Jesus)
Without love, deeds, even the most brilliant, count as nothing.
(Story of a Soul, Chapter VIII)
On the day of my conversion Charity entered into my heart and with it a yearning to forget self always; thenceforward I was happy.
(Story of A Soul, Chapter V)
