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Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Yankees Win Game 1, 7-2
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Our Lady of the Rosary-Battle of Lepanto
Read more about this feast day here.
ARCHBISHOP CHAPUT:
White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in the face that all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
These lines open one of the great poems of English literature, G.K. Chesterton’s Lepanto. On Oct. 7, 1571—exactly 438 years ago today—outnumbered Christian naval forces of the Holy League, including Spain, Venice, Genoa, Savoy, the Papal States and the Knights of Malta, defeated a Muslim war fleet threatening Italy and seeking to expand Turkish power into the western Mediterranean.
Fought off the coast of western Greece near the Muslim naval base of Lepanto, the battle is one of history’s decisive naval encounters. Turkish armed expansion in Europe would continue for more than a century. But Turkish naval power never recovered. Lepanto was a turning point. It helped secure the Christian roots and free societies of the modern Europe we know today.
Moreover, Lepanto can’t be reduced to a clash of commercial interests. It was clearly a contest of beliefs; of very different ideas about God, the human person and the meaning of human society. For the Ottoman Turks, conquests in Europe were an expression of Islamic jihad. Conquered peoples were pressed to convert. If they didn’t, they paid a heavy price in discrimination or outright persecution. As for the Holy League, the name speaks for itself. Modern secular, post-national thinkers may look back dismissively on the religious struggles for the identity of Western civilization, but the free ground they stand on was won with the blood of Christian believers. The history of Europe, and therefore of our own nation, could easily have been very different. It wasn’t. Lepanto is one of the reasons.
In the weeks leading up to the battle, Pope Pius V asked faithful Christians to pray a simple, popular Marian prayer for the Christian fleet’s crews and for the success of the Christian cause—the rosary. He prayed it himself in Rome on Oct. 7 as the battle commenced on the water hundreds of miles away. In the decades after Lepanto, in gratitude for Mary’s intercession, Oct. 7 came to be celebrated universally in the Catholic world as the Feast of the Holy Rosary (and also Our Lady of Victory). So it remains today, and rightly so.
More than four centuries later, we live in a different world. Europe seems intent on repudiating its Christian soul and accomplishing what armed conquest could never do: euthanizing itself spiritually and demographically. If Islam is now the rising religion in many European states, it’s not because of jihad. It’s because secular Europe has a created a moral vacuum, a spiritual dead zone in its heart, that cannot sustain life or create hope in the future. That dead zone must be filled by something, because people cannot live without faith in a meaning higher than themselves.
America is not Europe. Not yet. But to borrow a thought from the sociologist Peter Berger, we are a deeply, historically, religious people led by a much less religious leadership and opinion-shaping class. The undercurrent of distaste for religious faith can now be found every day in our entertainment, our news media, our universities and even among our public officials.
America is not Europe, and 2009 is not 1571. We live in a nation of laws. We enjoy freedom of assembly, worship and speech. As Catholics we seek reconciliation with fellow Christians and cooperation, where possible, with anyone of good will. But the lessons of history are worth remembering. No piece of paper, not even the Constitution, really guarantees our right to practice our Christian faith.
That right to religious freedom has to be earned and asserted and defended—publicly and vigorously—by every new generation of Christian citizens. That means you and me. And as the record has already shown, there is no better source of strength in that work than the rosary.
G.K. Chesterton’s “Lepanto,” with explanatory notes and commentary edited by Dale Ahlquist, is available from Ignatius Press.
Monday, October 5, 2009
St. Faustina Kowalska-Poland
St. Faustina Kowalska, Virgin:
Saint Faustina was born in the 20th century, and canonized in the year 2000. Jesus chose her to deliver to the modern world a message as old as eternity. It is the message of his love for all people, especially sinners. Jesus said to Faustina, "Today I am sending you with my mercy to the people of the whole world." It is his desire to heal the aching world, to draw all people into his merciful heart of love.APOSTLE OF DIVINE MERCY:
On February 22, 1931, Jesus appeared to Faustina as the King of Divine Mercy. He asked her to have a picture painted of him as she saw him — clothed in white, with red and white rays of light streaming from his heart. The rays represent the blood and water that flowed from the side of Jesus on the cross. Under the image are the words, "Jesus, I trust in you."
Many people did not believe Faustina at first. The sisters in her own convent thought that Jesus could not possibly have selected her for this great favor. After all, she was an uneducated peasant girl. Her superiors often refused to give her permission to carry out Jesus' requests. Church theologians, too, doubted her word. Jesus told Faustina that he loved her obedience and that his will would be done in the end.
In June 1934 an artist completed the painting of the Divine Mercy according to her instructions; and it soon became a focus for devotion. Faustina continued to record in her diary the appearances of Jesus. The diary was translated into English and published in 1987 with the title Divine Mercy in My Soul.
Faustina, baptized Helena, had grown up in a poor Polish family of 10 children. When she was 15 years old, she quit school in order to work as a housemaid to help support her family. By the time she was 18, she was sure that God was calling her to a religious life, but her parents objected. So she tried to put it out of her mind. But one night, while the lively polka music was playing at a village dance, Helena saw Jesus, sad and suffering. The very next day she packed a small bag and went to the capital city of Warsaw to join the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. There she received the name Sister Mary Faustina.
About 10 years later, Faustina contracted tuberculosis. Soon she was too weak to manage the heavy gardening assigned to her. So she was given the job of gatekeeper. She was able to show mercy to the poor people who came to the convent looking for food. Once Jesus came to the door as a poor young man. After he had eaten the soup and bread Faustina gave him, she recognized him. Jesus told her he had come to experience with great joy her tender love and mercy.
Faustina was canonized by the first Polish pope, John Paul II, on April 30, 2000. The first Sunday after Easter was declared Divine Mercy Sunday.
Feast: October 5
Information:
Feast Day: October 5
Born: 25 August 1905, Głogowiec, Poland
Died: October 5, 1938, Kraków, Poland
Canonized: 30 April 2000, Pope John Paul II
Major Shrine: Shrine of Divine Mercy in Łagiewniki, Kraków, Poland
Patron of: World Youth Day
St Mary Faustina Kowalska was born on 25 August 1905 in Glogowiec, Poland, to a poor, religious family of peasants, the third of 10 children. She was baptized with the name Helena in the parish church of Swinice Warckle. From a very tender age she stood out because of her love of prayer, work, obedience and her sensitivity to the poor. At the age of nine she made her First Holy Communion and attended school for three years. At the age of 16 she left home and went to work as a housekeeper in Aleksandrow, Lodz and Ostrowek in order to support herself and to help her parents.
At the age of seven she had already felt the first stirrings of a religious vocation. After finishing school, she wanted to enter the convent but her parents would not give her permission. Called during a vision of the suffering Christ, on 1 August 1925 she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy and took the name Sr Mary Faustina. She lived in the congregation for 13 years, residing in Krakow, Plock and Vilnius, where she worked as a cook, gardener and porter.
Externally, nothing revealed her rich mystical interior life. She zealously performed her tasks and faithfully observed the rule of religious life. She was recollected, yet very natural, serene and full of kindness and disinterested love for her neighbour. Although her life was apparently insignificant and monotonous, she hid within herself an extraordinary union with God.
It is the mystery of God's mercy, which she contemplated in the word of God as well as in her everyday activities, that forms the basis of her spirituality. The process of contemplating and getting to know the mystery of God's mercy helped to develop within Sr Mary Faustina the attitude of childlike trust in God and of mercy towards her neighbour. "0 my Jesus, each of your saints reflects one of your virtues; I desire to reflect your compassionate heart, full of mercy; I want to glorify it. Let your mercy, 0 Jesus, be impressed upon my heart and soul like a seal, and this will be my badge in this and the future life" (Diary 1242). Sr Faustina was a faithful daughter of the Church. Conscious of her role in the Church, she cooperated with God's mercy in the task of saving lost souls. At the specific request of the Lord Jesus and following his example, she made a sacrifice of her own life for this very goal. Her spiritual life was also distinguished by a love of the Eucharist and a deep devotion to the Mother of Mercy.
The years she spent in the convent were filled with extraordinary gifts, such as revelations, visions, hidden stigmata, participation in the Passion of the Lord, bilocation, the reading of human souls, prophecy and the rare gift of mystical espousal and marriage. Her living relationship with God, the Blessed Mother, the angels, the saints, the souls in purgatory—with the entire supernatural world—was as real for her as the world she perceived with the senses. In spite of being so richly endowed with extraordinary graces, Sr Mary Faustina knew that they do not in fact constitute sanctity. In her Diary she wrote: "Neither graces, nor revelations, nor raptures, nor gifts granted to a soul make it perfect, but rather the intimate union of the soul with God. These gifts are merely ornaments of the soul, but constitute neither its essence nor its perfection. My sanctity and perfection consist in the close union of my will with the will of God" (Diary 1107).
The Lord Jesus chose Sr Mary Faustina as the apostle and "secretary" of his mercy, so that she could tell the world about his great message. "In the Old Covenant", he said to her, "I sent prophets wielding thunderbolts to my people. Today I am sending you with my mercy to the people of the whole world. I do not want to punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to my merciful Heart" (Diary 1588).
The mission of Sr Mary Faustina consists in three tasks:
—reminding the world of the truth of our faith revealed in the Holy Scripture about the merciful love of God towards every human being;
—entreating God's mercy for the whole world and particularly for sinners, among others through the practice of new forms of devotion to the Divine Mercy presented by the Lord Jesus, such as: the veneration of the image of the Divine Mercy with the inscription: "Jesus, I trust in you"; the feast of the Divine Mercy celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter; chaplet to the Divine Mercy and prayer at the Hour of Mercy (3 p.m.). The Lord Jesus attached great promises to the above forms of devotion, provided one entrusted one's life to God and practised active love of neighbour;
—initiating the apostolic movement of the Divine Mercy, whose task is to proclaim and entreat God's mercy for the world and to strive for Christian perfection, following the precepts laid down by Sr Mary Faustina. The precepts in question require the faithful to have an attitude of childlike trust in God, expressed in fulfilling his will, and an attitude of mercy toward one's neighbour. Today millions of people throughout the world are involved in this Church movement: it includes religious congregations, lay institutes, religious, confraternities, associations, various communities of apostles of the Divine Mercy, as well as individuals who take up the tasks which the Lord Jesus communicated to them through Sr Mary Faustina.
Sr Mary Faustina's mission was recorded in her Diary, which she kept at the specific request of the Lord Jesus and her confessors. In it she faithfully wrote down all of the Lord's wishes and described the encounters between her soul and him. "Secretary of my most profound mystery", the Lord said to Sr Faustina, "know that your task is to write down everything that I make known to you about my mercy, for the benefit of those who by reading these things will be comforted in their souls and will have the courage to approach me" (Diary 1693). Sr Mary Faustina's work sheds light on the mystery of the Divine Mercy. It delights not only simple, uneducated people, but also scholars, who look upon it as an additional source of theological research.
Sr Mary Faustina, consumed by tuberculosis and innumerable sufferings, which she accepted as a voluntary sacrifice for sinners, died in Krakow at the age of 33 on 5 October 1938, with a reputation for spiritual maturity and a mystical union with God. Her reputation for holiness grew, as did the devotion to the Divine Mercy and the graces received from God through her intercession. Pope John Paul II beatified Sr Faustina on 18 April 1993. Her mortal remains rest at the Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Krakow-Lagiewniki.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Feast Day of the Guardian Angels
Video Hat Tip: Da Mihi Animas
Feast of the Guardian Angels:Perhaps no aspect of Catholic piety is as comforting to parents as the belief that an angel protects their little ones from dangers real and imagined. Yet guardian angels are not just for children. Their role is to represent individuals before God, to watch over them always, to aid their prayer and to present their souls to God at death.
The concept of an angel assigned to guide and nurture each human being is a development of Catholic doctrine and piety based on Scripture but not directly drawn from it. Jesus' words in Matthew 18:10 best support the belief: "See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father."
Devotion to the angels began to develop with the birth of the monastic tradition. St. Benedict (July 11) gave it impetus and Bernard of Clairvaux (August 20), the great 12th-century reformer, was such an eloquent spokesman for the guardian angels that angelic devotion assumed its current form in his day.
A feast in honor of the guardian angels was first observed in the 16th century. In 1615, Pope Paul V added it to the Roman calendar.
Comment:
Devotion to the angels is, at base, an expression of faith in God's enduring love and providential care extended to each person day in and day out until life's end.
Quote:
"May the angels lead you into paradise;may the martyrs come to welcome youand take you to the holy city,the new and eternal Jerusalem." (Rite for Christian Burial)
Guardian Angels:
This feast, like many others, was local before it was placed in the Roman calendar. It was not one of the feasts retained in the Pian breviary, published in 1568; but among the earliest petitions from particular churches to be allowed, as a supplement to this breviary, the canonical celebration of local feasts, was a request from Cordova in 1579 for permission to have a feast in honour of the guardian angels. (Bäumer, "Histoire du Breviaire", II, 233.)
Bäumer, who makes this statement on the authority of original documents published by Dr. Schmid (in the "Tübinger Quartalschrift", 1884), adds on the same authority that "Toledo sent to Rome a rich proprium and received the desired authorization for all the Offices contained in it, Valencia also obtained the approbation in February, 1582, for special Offices of the Blood of Christ and the Guardian Angels."
So far the feast of Guardian Angels remained local. Paul V placed it (27 September, 1608) among the feasts of the general calendar as a double "ad libitum" (Bäumer, op. cit., II, 277). Nilles gives us more details about this step. "Paul V", he writes, "gave an impetus to the veneration of Guardian Angels (long known in the East and West) by the authorization of a feast and proper office in their honour. At the request of Ferdinand of Austria, afterwards emperor, he made them obligatory in all regions subject to the Imperial power; to all other places he conceded them ad libitum, to be celebrated on the first available day after the Feast of the Dedication of St. Michael the Archangel.
It is believed that the new feast was intended to be a kind of supplement to the Feast of St. Michael, since the Church honoured on that day (29 September) the memory of all the angels as well as the memory of St. Michael (Nilles, "Kalendarium", II, 502). Among the numerous changes made in the calendar by Clement X was the elevation of the Feast of Guardian Angels to the rank of an obligatory double for the whole Church to be kept on 2 October, this being the first unoccupied day after the feast of St. Michael (Nilles, op. cit., II, 503).
Finally Leo XIII (5 April, 1883) favoured this feast to the extent of raising it to the rank of a double major.
Such in brief is the history of a feast which, though of comparatively recent introduction, gives the sanction of the Church's authority to an ancient and cherished belief. The multiplicity of feasts is in fact quite a modern development, and that the guardian angels were not honoured with a special feast in the early Church is no evidence that they were not prayed to and reverenced. There is positive testimony to the contrary (see Bareille in Dict. de Theol. Cath., s.v. Ange, col. 1220). It is to be noted that the Feast of the Dedication of St. Michael is amongst the oldest feasts in the Calendar. There are five proper collects and prefaces assigned to this feast in the Leonine Sacramentary (seventh century) under the title "Natalis Basilicae Angeli in Salaria" and a glance at them will show that this feast included a commemoration of the angels in general, and also recognition of their protective office and intercessory power.
In one collect God is asked to sustain those who are labouring in this world by the protecting power of his heavenly ministers (supernorum . . . . praesidiis . . . . ministrorum). In one of the prefaces, God is praised and thanked for the favour of angelic patronage (patrociniis . . . . angelorum). In the collect of the third Mass the intercessory power of saints and angels is alike appealed to (quae [oblatio] angelis tuis sanctisque precantibus et indulgentiam nobis referat et remedia procuret aeterna" (Sacramentarium Leonianum, ed. Feltoe, 107-8).
These extracts make it plain that the substantial idea which underlies the modern feast of Guardian Angels was officially expressed in the early liturgies. In the "Horologium magnum" of the Greeks there is a proper Office of Guardian Angels (Roman edition, 329-334) entitled "A supplicatory canon to man's Guardian Angel composed by John the Monk" (Nilles, II, 503), which contains a clear expression of belief in the doctrine that a guardian angel is assigned to each individual. This angel is thus addressed "Since thou the power (ischyn) receivest my soul to guard, cease never to cover it with thy wings" (Nilles, II, 506).
For 2 October there is a proper Office in the Roman Breviary and a proper Mass in the Roman Missal, which contains all the choice extracts from Sacred Scripture bearing on the three-fold office of the angels, to praise God, to act as His messengers, and to watch over mortal men. "Let us praise the Lord whom the Angels praise, whom the Cherubim and Seraphim proclaim Holy, Holy, Holy" (second antiphon of Lauds). "Behold I will send my angel, who shall go before thee, and keep thee in thy journey, and bring thee into the place that I have prepared. Take notice of him, and hear his voice" (Exodus 23; capitulum ad Laudes).
The Gospel of the Mass includes that pointed text from St. Matthew 18:10: "See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven." Although 2 October has been fixed for this feast in the Roman calendar, it is kept, by papal privilege, in Germany and many other places on the first Sunday (computed ecclesiastically) of September, and is celebrated with special solemnity and generally with an octave (Nilles, II, 503). (See ANGEL; INTERCESSION.)
The Memorial:
Memorial
2 October
first Sunday in September (in Germany)
Profile
The term guardian angels refers to the belief that each person has an angel who is available to shepherd their soul through life, and help bring them to God.
Belief in the reality of angels, their mission as messengers of God, and man’s interaction with them, goes back to the earliest times. Cherubim kept Adam and Eve from slipping back into Eden; angels saved Lot and helped destroy the cities of the plains; in Exodous Moses follows an angel, and at one point an angel is appointed leader of Israel. Michael is mentioned at several points, Raphael figures large in the story of Tobit, and Gabriel delivered the Annunciation of the coming of Christ.
The concept of each soul having a personal guardian angel, is also an ancient one, and long accepted by the Church
See that you despise not one of these little ones [children]: for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. - Jesus, Matthew 18:10
How great the dignity of the soul, since each one has from his birth an angel commissioned to guard it. - Saint Jerome in his commentary on Matthew
Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to minister for them, who shall receive the inheritance of salvation? - Hebrews 1:14
The feast celebrating the angels who helped bring us to God began in many local calendars centuries ago, and was widely known by the 16th century.
Pope Paul V placed a feast venerating the angels on the general calendar on 27 September 1608. Ferdinand of Austria requested that it be extended to all areas in the Holy Roman Empire.
Initially placed after the feast of Michael the Archangel, it was seen as a kind of supplement to that date. Pope Clement X elevated the feast, celebrated 2 October, to an obligatory double for the whole Church. On 5 April 1883, Pope Leo XIII raised the feast to the rank of a double major.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Newt's Papal Moment
Gingrich & Pope Benedict XVI:When Newt Gingrich was received into the Church last March, the reactions were predictable. The former Speaker of the House was simultaneously welcomed, jeered, and cynically accused of positioning himself to run for president in 2012.
When I spoke to him last Friday in his Washington, D.C., office, Gingrich was humble and soft-spoken about his new faith. He was also excited about his forthcoming documentary, Nine Days That Changed the World, recounting Pope John Paul II's first trip home to Poland in June 1979 after being elected to the see of St. Peter. Gingrich's wife, Callista, a cradle Catholic, is a co-producer of the film.
The Gingriches first got the idea for the film five years ago on a trip to Rome, where Callista, as part of the choir of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, was making a recording at the Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore. Conversations during the trip with Msgr. Walter Rossi, pastor of the basilica in D.C., combined with his recent reading of George Weigel's Final Revolution: The Resistance Church and the Collapse of Communism, provoked thoughts about the parallels between Communist-ruled Poland and the growing secularism of the United States.
Gingrich hopes his film will be an "evangelical vehicle" to combat the "secularist moment" in our culture. Telling the story of how John Paul's visit led Poland to overthrow Communism, Gingrich said the film will contain a clear message: "Our true humanness is found only in a relationship with God." Added Gingrich, "I hope people will see the film and think about their relationship to Christ and the importance of courage." The projected release date is November 9, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
There is another Polish connection in the Gingrich family: Callista's grandmother, on her father's side, was from Krakow. Gingrich told me that his wife never pushed her faith on him, but by her example "it was clear it meant a great deal to her." He went to Mass with her at the basilica and wherever they traveled -- including Hawaii, where they were treated to a hula dance. "We've been able to see the extraordinary range of the Church," he told me.
Gingrich explained that his wife "created an environment where I could gradually think and evolve on the issue of faith." Reading and conversations with various friends, primarily Monsignor Rossi, fed that process until the moment of decision arrived.
The moment came when Pope Benedict XVI visited the United States in April 2008. Gingrich was seated in the basilica, where his wife's choir was to sing vespers for the Holy Father, when he was suddenly able to see the pope up close. He recalled, "It was clear he [the pope] was having the time of his life, and the joy in his eyes belied his reputation as an austere German. As he walked past me, I knew I wanted to become a Catholic."
"I knew that I belonged here," he went on. "No -- as a Catholic, I should put it: Here is where I belong." As Gingrich parsed his sentence, his eyes teared up, and he excused himself for getting emotional. He changed the subject, but the emotion remained in his voice as he talked about Benedict's visit to New York City.
"It was extraordinary," he told me; "we were so blessed." As he and Callista tried to get close to the pope's entourage driving up Fifth Avenue, they ended up on the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral and were invited to stand at the back for the Mass. Then they were told that the pope would pass by their spot near the rope and bless a young boy in the wheelchair sitting next to them. They were overwhelmed when "Benedict XVI blessed the boy directly in front of us!"
Gingrich comes from a Pennsylvania Lutheran background, though he became Southern Baptist while in graduate school. From his mother's mother, he told me, he received a pronounced sense of "good versus evil in the world." He regards it as something of a mystery that, when his father went to Gettysburg College, "he had a copy of St. Augustine."
Gingrich thinks the first time he felt the tug of the Church might have been when he visited Notre Dame in Paris at age 13, but he clearly remembers the impact of visiting St. Jacob's Stone United Church of Christ in Glenville, Pennsylvania, where the effect of the organ "swept me away" as he heard his mother sing Handel's Messiah.
Since Gingrich often brings up the power of great churches and sacred music, I asked him about beauty. "Beauty comes from giving up our weakness and realizing you don't have to impose anything on the universe," he replied. "You accept that it comes from a higher being."
Secularism rejects and ridicules this acceptance of our creaturely status. Gingrich sees it gaining more and more of a foothold in the United States, as it already has in Europe. Further, it is antithetical to the history and culture of the United States. As Gingrich explained, "This country is heir to a Scottish and English Enlightenment that did not reject God, unlike the atheism of the French Revolution." "In the face of the secularist threat," Gingrich mused, "along with that militant Islam, endurance is what really matters."
At 66, Newt Gingrich has endured the travails of a very public life to discover a new faith and new mission to reinvigorate the Christian roots of our nation and our civilization. Nine Days That Changed the World will tell the story of John Paul's return to Poland, but its subtext will be the moment Benedict walked by with a smile on his face.
The Little Flower of Jesus
Saint Therese of Lisieux:
St. Thérèse of Lisieux:
Also known as:
Francoise-Marie Therese Martin
Teresa of the Infant Jesus
the Little Flower of Jesus
the Little Flower
Therese of the Child Jesus
Memorial
1 October
Profile
Born to a pious middle-class French family of tradesmen; daughter of Blessed Louis Martin and Blessed Marie-Azelie Guérin Martin, and all four of her sisters became nuns. Her mother died when Francoise-Marie was only four, and the family moved to Lisieux, Normandy, France to be closer to family. Cured from an illness at age eight when a statue of the Blessed Virgin smiled at her. Educated by the Benedictine nuns of Notre-Dame-du-Pre. Confirmed there at age eleven. Just before her 14th birthday she received a vision of the Child Jesus; she immediately understood the great sacrifice that had been made for her, and developed an unshakeable faith.
Tried to join the Carmelites, but was turned down due to her age. Pilgrim to Rome at for the Jubilee of Pope Leo XIII whom she met and who knew of her desire to become a nun. Joined the Carmelites at Lisieux on 9 April 1888 at age 15, taking her final vow on 8 September 1890 at age 17. Known by all for her complete devotion to spiritual development and to the austerities of the Carmelite rule. Due to health problems resulting from her ongoing fight with tuberculosis, her superiors ordered her not to fast. Novice mistress at age 20. At age 22 she was ordered by her prioress to begin writing her memories and ideas, which material would turn into the book History of a Soul. Therese defined her path to God and holiness as The Little Way, which consisted of child-like love and trust in God. She had an on-going correspondence with Carmelite missionaries in China, often stating how much she wanted to come work with them. Many miracles attributed to her. Declared a Doctor of the Church in 1997 by Pope John Paul II.
Born
2 January 1873 at Alcon, Normandy, France as Francoise-Marie Therese Martin
Died
7pm Thursday 30 September 1897 at Lisieux, France of tuberculosis
Venerated
14 August 1921 by Pope Benedict XV
Beatified
29 April 1923 by Pope Pius XI
Canonized
17 May 1925 by Pope Pius XI
St. Thérèse of Lisieux:
(Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus)
Carmelite of Lisieux, better known as the Little Flower of Jesus, born at Alençon, France, 2 January, 1873; died at Lisieux 30 September, 1897.
She was the ninth child of saintly parents, Louis and Zélie Martin, both of whom had wished to consecrate their lives to God in the cloister. The vocation denied them was given to their children, five of whom became religious, one to the Visitation Order and four in the Carmelite Convent of Lisieux. Brought up in an atmosphere of faith where every virtue and aspiration were carefully nurtured and developed, her vocation manifested itself when she was still only a child. Educated by the Benedictines, when she was fifteen she applied for permission to enter the Carmelite Convent, and being refused by the superior, went to Rome with her father, as eager to give her to God as she was to give herself, to seek the consent of the Holy Father, Leo XIII, then celebrating his jubilee. He preferred to leave the decision in the hands of the superior, who finally consented and on 9 April, 1888, at the unusual age of fifteen, Thérèse Martin entered the convent of Lisieux where two of her sisters had preceded her.
The account of the eleven years of her religious life, marked by signal graces and constant growth in holiness, is given by Soeur Thérèse in her autobiography, written in obedience to her superior and published two years after her death. In 1901 it was translated into English, and in 1912 another translation, the first complete edition of the life of the Servant of God, containing the autobiography, "Letters and Spiritual Counsels", was published. Its success was immediate and it has passed into many editions, spreading far and wide the devotion to this "little" saint of simplicity, and abandonment in God's service, of the perfect accomplishment of small duties.
The fame of her sanctity and the many miracles performed through her intercession caused the introduction of her cause of canonization only seventeen years after her death, 10 Jun, 1914.
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