St. Therese Peering Out at Me



The Little Flower is very gentle.

by Kathleen Blease

I had to look twice. My husband was sitting next to the wood stove, enjoying its warmth on this damp and early Spring day. His reading glasses were perched on his nose, and a cat was hanging over his bent knee. Her paws dangled down around his legs and she breathed in a big sigh.

I was standing in the kitchen, wiping my hands with the kitchen towel.

Rog was deep into what he was reading, curious. His fingers were wrapped around the glossy newsletter and lay across a large photo of St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower. She was peering out at me.

"Watcha readin', Hun?"
"Oh, just about the Eucharist."

I soaked in the scene, my non-Catholic husband reading about the Holy Eucharist... in a newsletter that has been arriving for several months now. As usual, this new issue sat in a pile of the week's mail, cluttered with junk mail and bills, mags and a diocesan newspaper, many of it sorted and ready for recycling.

St. Therese knew the secret. Patience. I can be patient. She is gentle and quiet, and she doesn't mind waiting her turn. I can wait.

A few Sundays ago, my sons and I arrived a little early for Mass. We always do. You see, at our parish, there is a demand for the front pews, and since I'm a little claustrophobic, well, I need to sit where everyone else is beyond me. So as we were walking up the aisle, it was hard to miss what our pastor was doing. He was comforting an elderly woman.

She leaned on her walker, eyes cast down. Father put his hands on her shoulders, bent down and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Think of Mary," he said. "She was patient. She waited thirty years until her son began his ministry. Then she waited three years while he worked in the public. Then she waited three days after his painful crucifixion to see His glory. She was a patient woman. And you're a patient woman, too, I know it."

Indeed, patience. St. Therese knew it. Still, I liked seeing the portrait of The Little Flower in the hands of my husband. Thank you, Society of the Little Flower.

Solitude, Imprisonment, and Peace: To Christ through Mary

"My child, the soul that is detached from the world and all that occupies the world lives truly happy days in solitude. Its only concern is with God, as though it is alone on earth with Him.

In solitude the spirit is always recollected so that it may hear the Lord's voice, and nothing can interrupt the heart's own voice as it constantly speaks to God." 

Mary speaks, The Advantages of Solitude, from The Imitation of Mary by Alexander De Rouville

I have been thinking a great deal these days about St. John the Baptist and St. Maximilian Kolbe, and these words from The Imitation of Mary ring loud and clear! 

Both men were faced with a lonely and inhumane imprisonment. St. John the Baptist was captured and thrown into a cell before he was finally beheaded at the request of a young, narcissistic girl. St. Maximilian Kolbe was taken to the Nazi's Auschwitz. It was there he requested to be put into solitary confinement, underground without food, clothing, water, or warmth. He did this to save another man. But his selflessness and acts of kindness didn't stop there.

Both men felt the utter joy of Christ while surrounded by hard, cold walls. St. John the Baptist sent out his disciples to ask Jesus if he was indeed the anointed one. Christ sent them back with instructions to tell John exactly what it was they were witnessing. They were John's eyes and ears. And when John heard their news, he was beyond joy and thanksgiving. His heart was bound to Christ in complete peace, despite his earthly surroundings and his forthcoming execution. 

St. Maximilian Kolbe was also bound to Christ, and he found a way to share the joy with the other men and women forced into the horrific conditions of their confinements.  While spending every hour in cold darkness, slowly withering away from severe hunger and thirst, he arranged daily prayers and hymns among the dying prisoners and practiced his duties as a priest to help the others face their death with hope and the eager anticipation of meeting their Lord. Even though they could not see one another and were surrounded by cold and wet stone walls, they developed a community of faith. The prison guards, who had the gruesome task of checking in to see if there were any bodies to collect, fell in love with the priest, and one even testified to help the process of his canonization.

What was it about these two men? I'm sure there are many, many more stories that are similar--prisoners who lived in unthinkable conditions yet lived in joy. (Fr. Walter Cisek is another. He writes about it in With God in Russia.)

In their solidarity, they turned their ears to the voice of God, and in Him they found the peace and love that completely filled their souls with the freedom of Heaven. If God can come to them in these moments, then we should know He comes to us in our comfortable surrounds.

There is so much more to this! But these are my thoughts for today.

Take a few moments of solitude with God. If you find that you can't settle your mind, then take all your thoughts to Him. Let him live with you in your thoughts. Peace will come. The door to each of our hearts opens only from inside. You will need to unlatch it so Christ can come in. He would be delighted to see you.

To Christ through Mary.

God bless.

Women Saints: A Nice Gift Idea for Mom

Here's a terrific book I discovered at the library, called Women Saints: Lives of Faith and Courage by Kathleen Jones (Orbis Books, 1999, paperback, 310 pages, ISBN 1-57075-291-5).

The book is divided into eight chapters:

1. Visionaries
2. Martyrs
3. Collaborators
4. Wives and Mothers
5. Penitents
6. Outcasts
7. Innovators
8. Missionaries

I just finished reading a selection from the Wives and Mothers, about St. Anna Maria Taigi (1769-1837), who lived a very arduous and difficult life. She lived in the poor quarters of Rome, and her husband was far from a reasonable and happy man. He was prone to many tantrums. Yet, while raising six children (she gave birth to them over a span of twenty years), she kept her eyes on Heaven and sought out Jesus' refuge. She offered her husband unending patience and guidance. In time, queens, clergy, and nobles sought her out, in her austere and humble home. One queen even offered her gold, which she readily refused, acknowledging the extraordinary gift of her faith. Her canonization was a long yet amazing process, during which her husband personally vouched for her strength in Christ. Since she was never a religious, documents were not available regarding her spiritual development, thus every detail was carefully scrutinized.

Author Kathleen Jones is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at the University of York and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Pyschiatrists. She has translated The Poems of St. John of the Cross and revised two volumes of the new edition of Butler's Lives of the Saints.

Women Saints includes only a few modern women: Katherine Drexel, Edith Stein, and Anuarite Nengapeta. I would like to see more included, but just the same, the book is beautifully written and well researched.

You can purchase Women Saints by just clicking on the book above, or by visiting Kathleen's Catholic Book Shop. It is wonderful, edifying reading. Perhaps it would make a nice gift for a mom in your life.

God bless!

Padre Pio: For the Love of Corpus Christi

St. Padre Pio: Born Francis Forgione in the south-central Italian town of Pietrelcina, he was a simple Capuchin monk who spent his entire life celebrating Mass and hearing confessions.

He did not travel the world, collect rare artifacts, scale walls or suffer in dungeons. He was not a soldier or a millionaire. Yet, he was a great warrior who fended off Satan himself and saved countless souls, literally. He built a hospital with his compassion and drew thousands upon thousands of Catholic and non-Catholics alike to his tiny confessional, where many waited as long as thirty days to be heard and absolved of their sins by this simple man who bore the wounds of Christ, the stigmata.

Just as The Little Flower, St. Therese of Lisieux, spent her life in one monastery and changed the world through the living sermon of her little ways, St. Padre Pio defeated evil and cast out darkness to make present Christ among us, never traveling but a few miles from home. His daily Mass took ninety minutes. This was not due to additional prayers but to his love for the ultimate prayer itself and his need to contemplate the great mystery of The Eucharist, often times bringing him to tears of joy and gratitude. Padre Pio could read hearts and souls, much to the surprise of many sinners, and his rare gift of bi-location was well spent as he brought comfort to the dying.




Here is a wonderful book my pastor,  Fr. Deo, lent to me. It's a compilation of essays about Padre Pio from people who knew him best, covering topics such as his childhood, early priesthood, how the stigmata came to be, his work in the confessional, and his love for the Mass. A true delight to read all at once or bit-by-bit.

God bless!

St. Damien Boy Scout Troop of Molokai

by Kathleen Blease




Being a mom of two Boy Scouts and a counselor of the Scout’s Catholic religion emblem program (called the Ad Altare Dei), it does my heart good to hear about kids doing great things to celebrate the Faith.

So let me tell you about the St. Damien Boy Scout Troop of Molokai, Hawaii. This group of young men devoted their Boy Scout Troop to St. Damien. It was unusual in itself to name a Troop after a Saint, but if that wasn't enough, these kids decided that they would set off for Belgium and then for Rome to witness the canonization of the hero of their island, the Blessed Fr. Damien de Veuster of Molokai. They first traveled to Belgium, to visit the saint's birthplace. Then it was off to the Vatican for the canonization. What an effort! What an experience for young men!

Fr. Damien de Veuster was ordained to the Sacred Heart Fathers in 1864, then sent to Hawaii to work in the missions on the main island. In 1873, he volunteered to work in the leper colony located on Molokai, devoting himself particularly to the children of the colony, although he showed great care to lepers of all ages. He became known as the Leper Priest, the Hero of Molokai. Within the colony, he was also a builder of churches, schools, and clinics, and he reportedly built some 600 coffins. In 1885, he announced that he, too, contracted the terrible disease, yet he remained vitally active in caring for his charges in every way, providing them with love and human diginity. He died in April of that year. His feast day is October 11th.

St. Damien was canonized on February 21, 2009. For more information about St. Damien, click here. Or to find a book on the saint, click here.

Check out the St. Damien Boy Scouts, follow their blog, and watch their clips about their travels. My boys belong to a Troop of more than 100 Boy Scouts (the biggest in our council), so St. Damien's troop seems small by comparison...small, but mighty! Let's pray for their continued success!