St. Therese of the Child Jesus October 1

St. Therese of the Child Jesus

St. Therese of the 

Child Jesus, Virgin

Memorial October 1

Saint Therese was born at Alencon in France in 1873.  While still a young girl, she entered the Carmelite monastery at Lisieux.  There she lived a life of humility, evangelical simplicity and trust in God.  By word and example she taught those virtues to the novices of the community.  Offering her life for the salvation of souls and the growth of the Church.  She died September 30, 1897.

St. Therese of the Child Jesus

In the Heart of the Church 

I will be Love

From the autobiography of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, virgin

Since my longing for martyrdom was powerful and unsettling, I trusted in the epistles of Saint Paul in the hope of finally finding an answer.  By chance the twelfth and thirteenth chapters of the first epistle to the Corinthians caught my attention, and in the first section I read that not everyone can be an apostle, prophet or teacher, that the Church is composed of a variety of members, and that the eye cannot be the hand.  Even with such an answer revealed to me, I was not satisfied and did not find peace.

St. Therese of Lisieux

I persevered in the reading and did let not my mind wander until I found this encouraging theme: Set your desires on the greater gifts.  And I will now show you the way which surpasses all others.  For the Apostle insists that the greater gifts are nothing as all without love and that this same love is surely the best path leading directly to God.  At length I had found peace of mind.

When I looked upon the Mystical body of the Church, I recognized myself in none of the members which Saint Paul described, and what is more, I desired to distinguish myself more favorably within the whole body.  Love appeared to me to be the hinge for my vocation.  Indeed I knew that the Church had a body composed of various members, but in this body the necessary and noble member was not lacking; I knew that the Church had a heart and that such a heart appeared to be aflame with love.  I knew that the one love drove the members of the Church to action, that if this love were extinguished, the apostles would have proclaimed the Gospel no longer, the martyrs would have shed their blood no more.  I saw and realized that love sets off the bounds of all vocation, that love is everyting, that this same love embraces every time and every place.  In one word, that love is everlasting.

Then, nearly ecstatic with supreme joy in my soul, I proclaimed:

 O 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 the 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 its direction.

Prayer: 

God our Father, you have promised your kingdom to those who are willing to become like little children.  Help us to follow the way of Saint Therese with confidence so that by her prayers we may come to know your eternal glory.   Grant this through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Taken from Liturgy of the Hours, Ordinary Time 18-34  October 1 Therese of the Child Jesus