St. Therese

From today's office of readings:

(Taken from the autobiography of St. Therese of the Child Jesus)

Love appeared to me to be the hinge for my vocation...I saw and realized that love sets the bounds of all vocations, that love is everything, that this same love embraces every time and every place. In one word, love is everlasting.

Then nearly ecstatic with the supreme joy in my soul, I proclaimed: Oh Jesus, my love, at last I have found my calling: my call is love. Certainly I have found my proper place in the Church, and you gave me that very place, my God. In the heart of the Church, my mother, I will be love, and thus I will be all things, as my desire finds it's direction.

Novena prayer to St. Therese by Pope Benedict XV

O Eternal Father, Whose infinite love watches in wisdom over each day of my life. Grant me the light to see in sorrow as in joy, in trial as in peace, in uncertainty as in confidence, the way Thy Divine Providence has marked for me. Give me that faith and trust in Thy care for me, so pleasing to Thee in St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, and I will walk in darkness as in light, holding Thy hand and finding in all the blessings I receive from Thy loving bounty, that “everything is a grace.” Amen.

O Heavenly Father, Who in Thine infinite wisdom did permit the just to be tried upon earth, like gold in the furnace, hereafter to crown them gloriously in Heaven, we ask Thee to grant us through the intercession of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, all the graces of fortitude and consolation which we urgently need in the difficulties we encounter here below. Teach us, O Father, to possess our hearts in Peace in the providential use of the Cross, as it was understood by St. Thérèse, who found happiness in the midst of sacrifices.

St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, who found joy in every trial, intercede for us with God that He may help us to bear patiently all our tribulations. Bring comfort to our hearts in the consoling truth that His Providence orders all things for the greater good of those who love Him. Obtain for us the favors and blessings we ask through your intercession, dear little St. Thérèse. Amen.


St. Therese, intercede for us now and always!