Preparation for Communion...

St. Therese lived in the presence of the Blessed Mother when fulfilling the most important act of the day: receiving Holy Communion. This was her method of preparing:

 

I picture to myself my soul as an open field from which I ask the Blessed Virgin to remove the obstacles which are my imperfections…At the moment of Communion, I sometimes imagine my soul is a child of three or four years, who has just come from play, hair disheveled, and clothes disorderly and soiled. These are the injuries that I meet in combating with souls…. Then comes the Blessed Virgin and in a moment makes me respectable looking and fit to assist at the Banquet of the Angels without shame (Autobiography, 254)

 

 

 

In Praise of Mercy...

To give worthy praise to the Lord's mercy,
we unite ourselves with Your Immaculate Mother,

for then our hymn will be more pleasing to You,
because She is chosen from among men and angels.

Through Her, as through a pure crystal, Your mercy was passed on to us.

Through Her, man became pleasing to God;

Through Her, streams of grace flowed down upon us.

(St. Faustina Diary, 1746)

 

 

The "Virgin of the Smile"

All of a sudden the Blessed Virgin appeared beautiful to me, so beautiful that never
had I seen anything so attractive; her face was suffused with an ineffable benevolence and tenderness, but what penetrated to the very depths of my soul was the “ravishing smile of the Blessed Virgin.”

 

Replica of the statue of the "Virgin of the Smile".

Therese's cure from a mysterious illness took place on May 13, 1883.

It was Pentecost Sunday.

 

The Holy Family...

My wife and I arrived a bit late for Mass today, and found it necessary to sit in the crying room.  There were few seats remaining in the rest of church.

On the wall in the room was a framed picture of the Holy Family -- Mary, Joseph, and a young baby Jesus.

A young mother in the pew before us held her toddler son, who took an immediate interest in the painting.  Glancing up at the portrait and moving his fingers aroound, he promptly declared "Daddy", "Mommy", "Baby".

It doesn't take a genius to recognize the simple beauty present in the family of God...

On Suffering...

There is a call to suffering with Christ and, through this, to cooperate in His salvific work.

In uniting ourselves with the Lord, we become members of his Mystical Body.
Through his members Christ extends His own life and it is He who suffers in them.

When we are in union with the Lord, our suffering becomes His suffering.
It becomes an integral part of the great work of salvation and is therefore fruitful.

(Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Letters 60).