ST. THERESE NOVENA - Third Day

THE LITTLE FLOWER: LIGHT AMIDST A CULTURE OF DEATH

NOVENA - THIRD 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: ""If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23)

Reflection: SUFFERING-- UNION WITH THE CRUCIFIED

In the Crucified, Thérèse encountered a burning furnace of love so stubbornly strong it sweetens even that which is most bitter. Here lies her secret: her Love is Crucified and suffering is his kiss. To follow him, to be united with him, is to shoulder, with selfless love, the Cross and the suffering it entails. Love for Jesus plunged Thérèse into mental, physical and spiritual desolation. Love drove her to become a "prisoner," as she calls it, within Carmel’s cold, brick walls, to volunteer to help a crotchety old sister make her way to the refectory and to silently put up with the inconveniences and annoyances of community life. Love allowed her to welcomed her father's humiliating illness and her own slow death all as a share in Christ's cross. Three months before her death, Thérèse stated, "suffering has become my heaven here below."

In offering herself to merciful Love, she gave herself up without any reserve to trial and suffering which marked her life as with a seal. Since "Love penetrated and possessed her," suffering seized her as if she were its prey. The victim offered in holocaust had been accepted. Love was to consume her body, by a most painful illness, and her soul, by a terrible trial: "A wall rose up to heaven and hid God from me". "O Mother, I did not believe that it was possible to suffer so much...” The magnitude of her suffering matched the intensity of her love. In the spiritual darkness and physical misery that marked her illness, she firmly believed that suffering united her to her Beloved.

Yet Thérèse had no interest in pain for its own sake. She rejected the deliberate infliction of pain through the wearing of ascetical devices, suspecting that it could become a source of pride. Pain was not her goal as there is more than that for Thérèse. Ultimately, suffering united her with Jesus Crucified whose love saves and sanctifies, inviting all who draw near to share in his work of redemption.

“Lead me, then, by the paths which He loves to travel. I shall be at the height of my joy, provided that He is pleased. Then Jesus took me by the hand, and made me enter an underground passage where it is neither hot nor cold, where I see nothing but a half-veiled light, the light which was diffused by the lowered eyes of my Fiancé's Face! My Fiancé says nothing to me, and I say nothing to Him except THAT I LOVE HIM MORE THAN MYSELF, and I feel at the bottom of my heart that it is true, for I AM MORE HIS THAN MY OWN! . (St. Thérèse, Letters)


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.