The Little Way

St. Therese of Lisieux

    St. Therese of Lisieux is know as the Little Flower. She was born on January 2, 1873 and was allowed to become a Carmelite Nun on April 9, 1888. She had such a strong conviction to take on a religious life that she boldly approached Pope Leo XIII and asked him to grant her permission to enter the convent. This happened while she was on a pilgrimage to Rome with her father and sister. The Pope told her to do as her superiors instructed. This happened before the Christmas of 1887 and she was told by New Years that she could enter the convent in the spring.

    The last six months I have studied the lives of many of the women who have taken Holy Orders in the past 1500 years. The Feast Day for St. Therese is October 1st as she died on Sept. 30, 1897 at the age of 24. She suffered with tuberculosis and during her final year her older sister, Mother Agnes of Jesus,  commissioned  Therese to write out an autobiography.  This is called the Story of a Soul  and was translated from French into more than 50 different languages. I was gifted a copy at the beginning of the month.

    The person who gifted me this book had no way of knowing how many ways this story would touch me. First, I have a personal story of prayers addressed to St. Therese. In the late 1930's a little boy in Prineville, Oregon had his appendix burst. The family brought the boy home after the local doctor had cleaned out the wound and sewed him up. Somehow his mother reached a friend in Bend and asked her to pray for her little boy to live. 

    The woman from Bend, lived 35 miles away. The Prineville folks were living in a tent along the Crooked River. This sweet lady traveled to Prineville and prayed with the mother and little boy. Before leaving she pinned a medal of St. Therese on the boy's pillow.

    The boy grew up to be a man who fathered three daughters. He told the story of the burst appendix to the girls, as the scare was huge and ugly, but never mentioned the medal. They were a protestant family and he never thought much of the medal on a black ribbon that was in his jewelry box. The miracle of his healing captivated the youngest daughter each time she thought of medical conditions of the time and how God must have chosen to heal her father.

    About five years ago his middle daughter came to visit and explained that she was now following the Roman Catholic tradition of faith. This news jogged the father's memory and he told her the story of the medal and gave her this token of his childhood. On a later visit when the youngest daughter became an Anglican catholic the older sister shared the story. I am the younger sister.

    I ordered my own copy of the medal of St. Therese which will be held in a little pocket  of  a scapular when I am Set Apart as a Deaconess in the Anglican Province of Christ the King on October 30th. My vestments will involve a full size blue scapular which will be worn over a white cassock. I will not wear these vestments everyday, but to remind myself of my vocation I will wear this little scapular containing the medal daily under my school clothes.

    Young Therese was only on this earth for 24 years and had a much larger impact on souls after her death. I recently heard of a similar calling of a young man in Italy who is a peer of my own children. Carlo Acutis was born shortly after my daughter Mary, in 1991. He lived such an admirable life that he has been chosen to be Beautified and soon may be a Saint. Carlo is a patron to computer programmers and the youth. He is buried at Assisi and the pilgrimages have already begun to his tomb.

    The story of this young man and what he accomplished for the faith in his short years on earth is a message to those of us still living. "Do not be a photo copy of others", he said. He used all of his talents for the Lord. Like Therese he began his devotion at an early age and gave mercy, grace, and love to all he came in contact with from four years old.

    In the Spring I must give a talk about what it means to be a Deaconess. I do not know what that talk will be about, but I know that grace, mercy, and the love of Christ will be key points. I identify with Therese as I was a tender soul who cried so easily and was misunderstood. Only in recent years have I accepted that most people do not feel things as strongly as I do. That knowledge alone has helped me to not feel misunderstood. How can a person be misunderstood if no one knows that they have something to be understood. I can say that I have been much harder on myself that others ever expected me to be.

    Going forward, I give myself grace, love, and mercy. Our world is not a place of peace but Jesus can give us peace in our hearts. I pray that you will find the peace mentioned in St. Francis prayer. 

 "May I decrease as HE increases." (John 3:30)

Lord, Make Me An Instrument of Your Peace.