St Therese The Little Flower

Today is the feast day of on of my favorite saints, St Therese. Isn't she beautiful? I remember the first St Therese novena I prayed. Yes, I got the roses. It was the first of many.

St Therese, the little flower,

please pick me a rose from the heavenly

garden and send it to me with a message of love

Ask God to grant me the favor I thee implore and tell

Him I will love Him each day more and more.

Amen.

The above prayer plus 5 Our Fathers, 5 Hail Mary's and 5 Glory Be's must be said on 5 successive days. On the 5th day the 5th set of prayers having been completed, offer one more set 5 Our Fathers, 5 Hail Mary's and 5 Glory Be's.

It is said that on the 5th day, when you least expect it, your prayer will be answered with a "shower of roses" . Some how, you just know when your prayer is answered. My first time praying it was many years ago, like 15 years, I think. I was praying for my husband at the time (who is now an ex) and his depression. Desperately. I was kind of just going through my conversion, learning about novenas, saints and all the treasures of my own Catholic faith that I did not even know I had.

I was talking to my mom on the phone and she mentioned they were going to go to a movie with my younger brother. So I asked if I could go with them, she said sure but I'm sure she thought that was kind of weird. (this was not in character with me, as I had kind of given my life to my husband) But I needed a break, and went without even asking him. I just said "I'm going to a movie with my parents, I'll be back in a few hours" and left. I had never done this in our whole 2 years of marriage, just gone and done something on my own like that. It happened to be the last day of my novena to St Therese.

After the movie, my dad took a weird way home and drove around a little, we ended up driving by a house where an older lady was out walking around her yard and we noticed a statue that was placed in a hole in a tree, it was beautiful. We urged my dad to drive around again and tell the lady how beautiful it was. He did. And as we were sitting in the vehicle talking to this lady in her yard, I noticed, all around her yard, she had tons of roses. Tons. (they were fake, but there were tons) They were everywhere. All of them roses, all different colors. At that moment in time, as it was frozen, just for the moment, she looked at me and said she had prayed all her life for her depression, that she had suffered all her life from it and she kept hanging on because of God. That God kept her going and pulled her through every time. A moment frozen in time, that is what it feels like when you get a direct answer, a prayer answer, on the 5th day of my novena, on a road that I noticed was a road I took every day to work, a house I drove by every day and never noticed the roses until that moment.

I continued to pray this special novena many times, getting roses in many different ways, noticing wild roses growing at a stoplight that I'd not noticed before. When a prayer is answered, it is not when you are looking for it though, it is always an "a-ha!" moment. A moment frozen in time, that is the only way I can describe it.

On this special day, I remember St Therese and how special she is to me and to so many. I remember her special "little way" she lived her life. She is a saint for all of us.

St Therese, please pray for us!

**on a side note: I always pronounced her name Therese, like Mother Theresa until our first All Saints party 3 years ago, Ballerina Rosie was dressed as her among others, but everyone else called her St Therese, like Ter-ez. OK, finally, now I usually say Ter-ez, but it is hard to switch and I usually end up saying both! :)