The Little Flower - 1st Oct.

This year, the Feast of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus (Lisieux) or ‘The Little Flower’ will not be celebrated as it fell on the 26th Sunday of the Ordinary Time in our Liturgical Calendar. But we are still remember her feast and as for this opportunity, we recalled her presence among us during the visit of her relic to our monastery more than 20 years ago, in 2002, and some of her spiritual teaching and insight that stay relevant for us today.

Her well known picture on the sanctuary of our chapel.

“I feel that my mission is about to begin, my mission to make God loved as I love Him, to teach souls my little way.”

“It is the way of spiritual childhood, the way of trust and absolute surrender.”

The sanctuary with colourful roses during her visit on the 10 -11 February, 2002..

Declared Doctor of the Church in 1997.

Her final words, "My God..., I love you!”

Only ten years in Carmel, she entered at the age of 15!

With special eucharistic celebration. Bishop Justin during the mass…

“I felt charity enter into my soul, the need to forget myself and to please others; since then I've been happy!”

A Carmelite friar incensed the relic during the mass.

..with some other priests and also people from everywhere gathered for the historical and spiritual moments.

“Directors make people advance in perfection by performing a great number of acts of virtue, and they are right. But my Director, who is Jesus Himself, teaches me to do everything through love.” 

Devotees came to pray before her relic.

“..I want to teach them the little means which have proved so perfectly successful for myself. I want to tell them that there is only one thing for us to do here below: to throw at Jesus’ feet the flowers of little sacrifices, to win Him through our caresses. That is the way in which I have taken hold of Him, and that is why I shall get such a good welcome.”

“..we must not be discouraged by our faults, for children fall frequently.”

Such a lovely sight to see this younger group praying before the saint!

"The nearer one gets to God, the simpler one becomes."

Eucharistic celebration held outside the chapel with Bishop Quinn as the chief celebrant with more priests…and many more faithful participants!

"For me, prayer is a burst from my heart, it is a simple glance  thrown toward Heaven, a cry of thanksgiving and love in times of trial  as well as in times of joy."

“O Jesus, my love, at last I have found my calling: my call is love. Certainly I have found my 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 its direction.”

From her autobiography ‘Story of a Soul’

St Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.