The Little Flower

Although we don’t officially celebrate the feast of St. Thérèse of Lisieux today because it is a Sunday, Carmelites do, and the rest of us who have a devotion to her can’t forget her day! St. Thérèse, among so many other things, knew through the Holy Spirit the depth of our vocation as contemplatives. In her The Story of a Soul, Thérèse tells us, “Yet I feel the call of more vocations still; I want to be a warrior, a priest, an apostle, a Doctor of the Church, a martyr—there is no heroic deed I do not wish to perform. I feel as daring as a crusader, ready to die for the Church upon the battlefield.” And she realized that through her contemplative vocation, she could in fact be all these.

It is through prayer and contemplation that she was able to be everywhere, and today she is the patron saint of missionaries. This is the the depth and breadth of our vocation as comtemplative nuns. Our prayer in Christ connects us to the whole body of Christ, spread through out the world.

St. Thérèse, pray for us!