ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX - THE LITTLE FLOWER OF THE CHILD JESUS..........

Youthfulness has it's advantages and disadvantages.  All too often people tend to think of young people as incapable of doing certain things, when just perhaps they possess more ability and skill than they are given credit for.  Today's Saint of the Day, St. Therese of Lisieux, France; also known as St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, is an outstanding example of what I am positing.  As a child and a young woman, Therese strove for holiness.  She was a contemplative, who prayed assiduously, and who wrote a renowned biography, "The Story of a Soul", in which she presses all believers to follow , "the little way", that leads to Jesus.  Theresa lived to be only 24 years old, as she was consumed with tuberculosis, and died on September 30, 1897.  But her example of holiness and fidelity to prayer have followed into the 20th Century and now into the 3rd Millennium of Catholic-Christianity.On October 19, 1997, one hundred years after her death St. Therese of Lisieux was proclaimed by Pope John Paul II, to be a Doctor of the Church.  Her youthful holiness had a lasting affect on us as Church and under her patronage as a Saint of God are the causes of the foreign missions, florists, the Apostleship of Prayer, and France.  As we remember her on this 1st day of October, may we too seek to embrace the Call to Holiness, Vatican II, challenged every Catholic-Christian to live by, and that is so wonderfully exemplified by this holy woman..........St. Theresa of the Child Jesus - Pray For Us,   Fr.  Troy