11- Bothering the Saints: Praying to St. Thérèse with Mother Thérèse

As we celebrate all the saints at the beginning of this month of November, let us bother them with Mother Thérèse, especially her patron saint, Thérèse of Avila, for whom she had a special affection and for whom she had composed a prayer.

 

She seemed very busy with everything that interested the Congregation, the needs of our houses. She bothered the saints to obtain such and such a grace. [1]

This morning, I prayed to ask Our Lord, through the intercession of Saint Teresa – because it is good to pray through the intercession of the Saints who are more pleasing to God than us – to pierce the souls of all the Sisters of the Cenacle, from the first to the last, with the same arrow of God’s love that had pierced Saint Thérèse so that they were all ablaze with God’s love (Lyon Oct.15, 1880). [2]

Devoted to her holy and illustrious Patron Saint for whom she had composed a novena of the nine principal graces of her life, she made me a gift of them, saying: ‘Take them, little Sister’, as if to stir me into a greater love of God! [3]

Ill.: Bone statuette of Saint Teresa of Avila that Mother Thérèse “kissed lovingly on the last days of her life” (7,5 cm).

Prayer to Saint Thérèse

It is with boundless confidence that I come to you, O generous lover of Jesus Christ, to show you my misery and to beg you to have pity on me. I beseech you who have so ardently wished that God be known and loved to ask Him to make Himself known to me and to embrace me with His divine love.

I also beg, Saint Teresa, you, whose charity was so intense for those who wished to give themselves to God, to read in my soul the sincere desire I have of belonging entirely to Him, and obtain from Him the grace that my desire be realized; that my love for Him may be tender, universal and generous, seeking only Him and attached only to Him.

Do not let me go in ignorance of the path in which I should walk before Him.

Be with me in the difficulties and the temptations which I shall encounter in this path.

Obtain for me strength to resist, patience to suffer, and constancy to persevere.

Do for me in heaven, O great Saint, what you would have done on earth for me had the happiness been mine of seeing you and of consulting

 you for the needs of my soul, so that, transformed by your powerful intercession, I may be of the number of those whom you have sanctified by your counsels to bless forever the God Who made you holy and made me better through your help. Amen.

Novena to Saint Thérèse

It may be made before and after her feast. Recitation of 9 Paters, Aves, and Glorias in honor of St. Teresa and to thank God for the 9 special graces Our Lord granted to her. These might be used as subjects for the meditations of the week.

lst grace – The ardent desire she always had to die for Jesus Christ, a desire that made her seek martyrdom as we read in her life.

2nd grace – God made her know that she was making progress in divine charity and in love by suffering.

3rd grace – Her heart was pierced through the ministry of a seraphim

4th grace – Our Lord gave her the nail that pierced His right hand as a sign of the alliance He made with her, and received her as His Spouse.

5th grace – Saint Teresa was inspired to make the vow of always doing what she believed was most perfect.

6th grace – Her courage in suffering all kinds of difficulties and labors for God.

7th grace – Her perfect purity of body and soul.

8th grace – The grace that Jesus Christ gave her one day after Holy Communion when she found her mouth filled with His Precious Blood.

9th grace – The graces she received at death:

l. The sight of her divine Spouse Jesus Christ accompanied by a company of angels.

2. That she died rather from the vehemence of her love than from the violence of her illness.