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Welcome back to our nine-day novena asking for the intercession of "the greatest saint of modern times": Doctor of the Church St Thérèse of Lisieux. The novena is traditionally offered in the lead up to her feast on October 1. We ask the saints in Heaven to pray for us, just as we would ask our friends on earth to pray for us, because they are even closer to God and so their prayers contain even greater purity and power.
Novena prayer: Day 4
For each of the nine days, pray this prayer:
St Thérèse, you said you would let fall from Heaven “a shower of roses” as a sign of your prayers for us. Please bring my special intention before God (mention intention here).
Please pray for me to believe as you did in God's great love for me, so that I might imitate your complete trust in Him. Pray that I may live my life in union with God’s plan for me, and one day see the Face of God whom you loved so deeply.
Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen.
Reflect and pray
Reflect on this meditation from Thérèse:
“Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice. Here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the littlest right thing and doing it all for love.”
"Jesus does not ask for great achievements, only surrender and gratitude."
"Our Lord’s love shines out just as much through a little soul who yields completely to His Grace as it does through the greatest."
"[W]hen I compared myself to the saints, there is between them and me the same difference that exists between a mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds and the obscure grain of sand trampled underfoot by passers-by.
Instead of becoming discouraged, I said to myself: God cannot inspire unrealizable desires. I can, then, in spite of my littleness, aspire to holiness. It is impossible for me to grow up, and so I must bear with myself such as I am with all my imperfections.
I want to seek out a means of going to heaven by a little way, a way that is very straight, very short, and totally new.
We are living now in an age of inventions, and we no longer have to take the trouble of climbing stairs, for, in the homes of the rich, an elevator has replaced these very successfully. I wanted to find an elevator which would raise me to Jesus, for I am too small to climb the rough stairway of perfection.
I searched, then, in the Scriptures for some sign of this elevator, the object of my desires, and I read these words coming from the mouth of Eternal Wisdom: “Whoever is a LITTLE ONE, let him come to me” (Matthew 19:14).
And so I succeeded. I felt I had found what I was looking for.
But wanting to know, O my God, what You would do to the very little one who answered Your call, I continued my search and this is what I discovered: “As one whom a mother caresses, so will I comfort you; you shall be carried at the breasts, and upon the knees they shall caress you” [cf. Is 66:10–13].
Ah! never did words more tender and more melodious come to give joy to my soul. The elevator which must raise me to heaven is Your arms, O Jesus! And for this, I had no need to grow up, but rather I had to remain little and become this more and more."
Journal and pray:
What are the little, ordinary things in your life that you can do with greater love?
What does it mean not only to embrace little actions done with great love, but also to be little?
Come back tomorrow for Day 5 of the novena. You can also subscribe here so you don't miss anything.
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