First… Today was the feast of the great Saint Therese of Lesieux, or as my missal calls her, “Teresa of the Infant Jesus”. See below. I hope she showered you with roses today. I didn’t get any but that’s cool.
As always, friends, I continue to pray for your intentions in my St. Rita novena (another saint who shares the rose as a symbol). I hope you also keep my intentions in your prayers. Of late I have come to realize some important lessons. As one begins the novena prayers (or at least the specific set I use), one asks the Holy Ghost to guide us in forming our intentions. In others words, I pray that the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity keep me from seeking after things that are not of God’s Will. Rather, I ask Him to help me to pray for the things that are God’s Will. And of late I have begun to realize that perhaps some of my own intentions (in the offing for years now some of them) are simply not a part of God’s plan for me. Don’t get me wrong, they are not bad things per se. I think what has helped me in this knowledge is something I read from St. Therese years ago. I want to give credit but do not have the book in front of me. Suffice to say that it was in a book called Fulton Sheen’s Saint Therese.
The book is a collection of talks that Sheen gave to a Carmel once. One thing that stands out in my mind is his description of Therese and her child-like love of God. It seems that the Little Flower once remarked that she “wanted to be as a plaything in the hands of God”. In other words, she saw herself as a rag doll given to a child on Christmas. If that child was pleased to make the rag doll the center of their universe, then so be it. If, however, that child felt like tossing the rag doll into a toy box never to be remembered, then that was also fine for her. The important thing was that she belong to God.
Sometimes I can really identify with that rag doll…
In other news, apparently Cardinal Burke, et al. held a press conference? They must not have said the words I was hoping to here or I would have heard it by now.
Also, the antipope blathered on about the ratification of adultery and sodomy again today. Also, water is wet.
More to come.
St. Therese, pray for us!
Harvey Millican's Blog: Musings of a Trad Dad 