ST. THERESE NOVENA - Second Day

THE LITTLE FLOWER: LIGHT AMIDST A CULTURE OF DEATH

NOVENA - SECOND DAY
Opening Prayer: O my God! I believe in You: strengthen my faith. All my hopes are in You: O secure them. I love You: teach me to love You daily more and more.

WORD: "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin." (Hebrews 4:15)

Reflection: SUFFERING--THE WAY OF JESUS

When she received the habit of Carmel, Thérèse chose the suffix: --"Of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face," a title which fully encapsulates her vision of God. For Thérèse, love has driven God to empty himself so that he can draw near to us and consequently draw us to himself.

Since God became a Child, how could anyone be afraid of him? This weakness, innocence and vulnerability of Christ's childhood culminates in his Passion where weakness, innocence, and vulnerability become His sacrifice of redemptive love. The Childhood of Jesus and His Holy Face encapsulate one singular mystery: Jesus empties himself as the Child of the Crib and the Victim of the Cross in order to draw souls into the very intimacy of the Trinity.

In Jesus, the mystery of suffering is thus caught up in the mystery of divine love. In his emptiness, Jesus meets us in the crucible of suffering where we are most vulnerable. Jesus goes to the heart of the human struggle and that is where we find Him. In our darkest and most painful moments--physically, mentally, spiritually--our God has been there and he walks with us. With the tenderness of a little Child and the compassion of a Man of Sorrows, he embraces us with his love, a love which ushers us and our own sorrows into the very heart of the Divine Trinity.


But when man, too, had trifled with God's grace,
Pity and comfort were to him displayed.
The Eternal Word, the Father's Equal Son,
Clothing Himself with poor humanity,
Back to His Father's heart the exiles won
By His profound humility.
(St. Thérèse, Poem in Honour of St. Joan of Arc)

DAILY PRAYER
O Lord, You have said: Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; grant us, we beg You, so to follow, in humility and simplicity of heart, the footsteps of the Virgin blessed Thérèse, that we may attain to an everlasting reward. Amen.

St. Thérèse, beloved friend, you promised to spend your heaven doing good upon earth. We come before you in our need. We believe that you listen to us and approach God for and with us. You are love in the heart of the Church. You are love in the heart of God. With childlike faith and selfless love, you were ushered in the circle of our Lord's passion, offering us His Holy Face as the key to the mystery of suffering.
O Little Flower, remembering your promise "to do Good upon earth" and to shower down your "roses" on those who invoke you, obtain graces for these intentions which we place before you:
- For those who are sick and suffering, especially those with terminal illnesses
- For all who are burdened by physical and mental affliction, disease, and all forms of addiction
- For all who have lost faith in the Gospel of life, and especially for those whose old age or infirmity temps them to despair
- For all whom society has abandoned; for those who have no one to pray for them, for those who contemplate suicide
- For their families and all who care for them, nurses, doctors and health care workers
- For our political and religious leaders and all with positions of influence,

O St. Thérèse, our sister, obtain for us a strong faith and love to embrace the Risen Lord. May your intercession discourage the enemy and banish from our land the scourge of the Culture of Death. Anchored in prayer, fill us with apostolic zeal to become living witnesses to the Merciful Love of God and the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death. To the Child Jesus, whose Holy Face, radiant with the wounds of his blessed Passion, is our light and our salvation, be glory and honour in this dark night and in the everlasting day. Amen.

1 'Our Father,' 1 'Hail Mary,' 1 'Glory be' in reparation for sins against the gift of life.