FEAST DAY OF ST. THERESE OF THE CHILD JESUS AND THE HOLY FACE

October 1 is the feast day of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.

This year, this will be the final feast day of our Saint before 2023, when the world will celebrate a year of great joy for the 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF HER BEATIFICATION which took place on April 29, 1923.

{Other Language Translations: [SPANISH] [PORTUGUESE] [ITALIAN] [POLISH] [GERMAN] [FRENCH] [RUSSIAN]}                            

The world knows her as Therese of Lisieux, as the Little Flower, as St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. Pope Pius XI described her as the guiding star of his pontificate and declared her "the patroness of all the missions"  (Bishop A.A. Noser).  Countless Churches across the world have been dedicated to her name. Numberless homes, rich and poor alike, have statues and photographs of her in their little alcoves and on their walls. Who is this Little Flower of God? How could she possibly touch my daily challenges, my relationship with God, my prayer life, my fears, my family hurts, my memories, my joys, my hopes? How could she, a French nun who lived over 100 years ago, give meaning to my sufferings today? Her name, which holds mystical depths, is a door which opens to reveal answers to these profound questions. Light begins to shine for us into a first mystical depth that plumbed her life  when we focus on how she is often called simply, St. Therese of the Child Jesus. In this abbreviated form of her name, we recognize her deep love for the innocence, vulnerability, total dependence of our Savior as Child of Mary. And her choice of name causes us to pause,  like St Therese, and to curl into the arms of Our Mother to ask her  to teach us humility, smallness, hiddenness, abandonment to God.  Therese lived these.  Her name opens our own pathway into the arms of Our Immaculate Mother  because there, Our Beloved Spiritual Mother will reshape us into those spiritual  depths of holiness. She will etch out the Features of her Son  and imprint them in our soul.  We may begin by remembering...what is our name? Our Baptismal name, our Confirmation name?  Both were inspired by the Spirit Lord, Roah, Mighty Breath of the  Father and the Son, breathing this name into our soul, as He did into Therese.  Do we give life every day to the virtues of the saints whose names we chose?  Has this been our life-mission thus far?  Therese's life mission was to reveal the Child Jesus Who was Humility  made Flesh.  Her life in Carmel imaged His Humility. But, as Father John Clarke OCD reminds us, a mutilation of her name leads necessarily to a mutilation of her message, her entire life, her devotion to the Passion of Christ and her desire to use the merits of Christ to bring salvation to others.  Therese was gripped by the Image of the Holy Face described in Isaiah 53, "…despised, rejected, pierced, crushed, oppressed "... for the transgressions of his people he was punished,… He bore the sins of many." From her sickbed, St. Therese revealed to Mother Agnes the powerful and eternal mission within her name. "These words of Isaiah ... have been the whole foundation of my devotion to the Holy Face, or, to express it better, the foundation of my whole piety. I also have desired to be without beauty, to tread the winepress alone, unknown to every creature" (Father Guy Gaucher OCD). We may now ponder the glorious message hidden within the second part  of the name of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.  How can that message, so brutally made visual in the Holy Face, be  understood by us as it was by Therese?  It was by entering into and immersing herself in the suffering of the Holy Face  that her great love and faith and trust spills over to enrapture us  at those times when we too may be invited to share in His suffering  for the salvation of our soul or for the soul of another: "Your lot is indeed a beautiful one, since Our Lord has chosen it for you,  and has first touched with His own Lips the cup which He now  holds out to yours". These profound words of our saint give eternal meaning  to the suffering we may endure in our own days and that of our dear ones.  In prayer, Therese's insight draws us into the mysteries and power  of abandonment to God's Will and into His Death and Rising.  A second door is opening into the mystery of the message of St. Therese.  We began by stepping a little way into that mystery by asking  how we could encounter Humility in His Sacred Humanity and  we found our answer in the first part of Therese's name.  Now, the latter part of her name in Carmel brings us face to Face  with The Suffering Servant.  If we feel trepidation, daunted by those interior fears that torment us  when we behold the Suffering Christ, taunts like: I could lose my health,  my family could be damaged, I could be financially ruined if I follow  the Savior.  St. Therese quiets us. She reminds us: "Jesus does not demand great actions from us, but simply gratitude and surrender". So, how therefore can we begin to surrender, to become docile to  His Will and unglue ourselves from our own determined will  to abandon ourselves into God's Will? St. Therese gives us her "little way" of breaking our own will into  full abandonment into God's Will. Spirit Lord may inspire us with  our own "little ways" of surrender.... We may have been waiting with great anxiety for a particular letter  concerning a financial matter and when it finally arrives,  we leave it, unopened, for at least an hour,  abandoning all it contains along with all the anxiety and  fear at the foot of the Cross of the Savior ... and our will is made subject to God's Will.  United with Christ's on the Cross, our small sacrifice is grasped  by the mighty power of Spirit Lord and spiritual miracles happen.  A loved one may be turn back to God after years of rejecting His love;  a suffering and fear-filled woman may hesitate on entering an abortion clinic  and decide to give life to her unborn child; a great grandchild  who will only ever see photographs of us  may be filled with a passionate love for the Savior and  may be the one whose heartfelt prayer will lift us from Purgatory  into Heavenly Union in God.  "Prayer causes the Heavens to pour down the Righteous One". (Hans Urs von Balthasar) Prayer offered through Love soars beyond place and time. "...LOVE IS  ALL THINGS, AND THAT, BECAUSE IT IS ETERNAL,      IT EMBRACES EVERY TIME AND PLACE".  (St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face) AND LOVE HAS A NAME.                    IT IS THE LORD.

(Extracts from Seven Petals by Anna Rae-Kelly OCDS, Teresian Press. 2022. 

Seven Petals and other Carmelite Teresian Press titles and all TMP productions are available from https://carmelite.org.uk/)