I absolutely love this photo of St. Therese. From what I have read, this was taken by her sister, Celine, when she was so very ill. Her penetrating gaze is so awesome...the fire of the Holy Spirit is just so present.
St. Therese has been my sister and guide all these years of my life as a Catholic. I believe she chose me; guided me; prepared me for religious life and the priesthood.
I love her so very much...she was so in love with Jesus, loved Holy Mother Church so passionately, and yet, was very human (she mimicked the chaplain...and she's a saint!)...I love her sense of humor and irony...she had no illusions about life, about faith, about what it means to live a spiritual life, about what it means to belong to Jesus, "absolutely", and her meditations upon our Holy Mother are so filled with deep, intimate knowledge of the Mother of God and Her love for each of us.
St. Therese, pray for us! Pray for bishops and priests! Pray for families! Pray for consecrated souls that they may be "a holocaust of love" that you lived in Carmel!
4 comments:
What a wonderful story you've shared. A saint and a real person at the same time (which is not as oxymoronical as it might at first sound). My take on the day here
Thanks, Owen.
Really.
If we can only experience the saints as our brothers and sisters...we could really make progress, yeah?
Your link: OMgoodness: I just adore F. O'Connor!!
She's so great...I'm afraid I have her "Irish irony"...sometimes to my deficit...harsh, nasty,...but God deals with all of us in the way He has to! Thanks!
Thank you for this post.
St Therese's talent for mimicry was shared by St Bernadette, who used to reduce the other sisters at Nevers to laughter with her impressions of the doctor who ran the clinic where they worked as nurses and assistants.
Clearly mimicry was a major part of life on French convents during that time...
As for photos of Therese, there are some in which she radiates a beauty which is both fully human and feminine and also fully..."deified" (to use a term from Byzantine theology).
Looking at her photos can really give rise to prayer - like a kind of pictorial lectio...
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