St. Thérèse Speaks
Beloved Mother, the image I wanted to give you of the darkness that clouds my soul is as imperfect as a sketch compared to the model, however, I don’t want to write more, I’d be afraid of blasphemy… I’m afraid I’ve even said too much…
Oh, may Jesus forgive me if I’ve hurt Him, but He knows that even though I don’t have the joy of the Faith, I try at least to do its works. I believe that I’ve made more acts of faith in the past year than in my entire life. At each new opportunity to do battle, when my enemies come to provoke me, I behave bravely, knowing that it is cowardly to fight a duel; I turn my back on my opponents without deigning to look them in the face, but I run to my Jesus, I tell Him that I am ready to shed even the last drop of my blood to confess that there is a Heaven. I tell Him that I am happy not to enjoy this beautiful Heaven on earth so that He may open it for eternity to poor unbelievers. In spite of this ordeal, which takes away all my joy, I can still cry out: “Lord, you fill me with joy in all that you do” (Ps 92:4).
Manuscript C, folio 7r (excerpt)
Novena Prayer
St. Therese of the Child Jesus,
remember your promise to do good on earth;
send your shower of roses in abundance
on those who call upon you,
and obtain for us from God the graces
we are waiting to receive from His infinite goodness.
Amen.
All source material for this novena comes from the website of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux, unless otherwise indicated.
We are grateful to artist Natalie Ewert for permission to use her copyrighted artwork in our featured image. You can explore more of her work at her Etsy shop, hallowedspace.
Translations from the French are the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.
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