Many years ago, it was at the very beginning of my prayer life, I came upon a novena to
Saint Therese,which I picked up from the table close to the main entrance/exit door of the church.
I had heard about Saint Therese, but as someone who did not grow up in the catholic faith, I had
converted, I did not really understand the role of the saints.
At this particular time, I needed help, help from above, as I found myself in a very uncertain
situation; my 24 year old marriage had broken up due to my ex's alcohol addiction.
I did not know what was going to happen to me and my children, and I was coming up to the day
in court for the legal separation hearing where my future would be decided by a judge.
My ex had furnished himself with a well reputed solicitor and barrister,
I had no income, so I had free legal aid.
In the little leaflet that explained how to pray a novena to Saint Therese, it said at the end that
in praying this novena one would receive flowers as a sign that the supplication would be granted.
I was very sceptical regarding that bit, but I thought it was worth praying the novena anyway.
A week after the 9 day novena, I was hurrying from my house to get to the bus stop in time.
I was getting the bus to town. In passing in front of my neighbours houses, one of them saw
me from her upstairs window, opened the window and shouted out to me to "hang on" a minute.
I was a bit annoyed because I was sure that I would miss the bus.
But as my neighbour was insisting that I wait, I did. She then came out of her front door with a
beautiful bouquet of flowers. I was speechless. In the decades I had lived there, neither her or any other of my neighbours had given me flowers.
They are good neighbours who help each other, but giving flowers just like that,
is not the done thing.
When I looked at her, she just said that she had felt inspired to give me flowers. Her daughter had been with her when she bought them, and she had tried to discourage her from buying flowers, saying that she would be better off buying me chocolates or something, but no, she felt strongly that I needed flowers!
This neighbour is in no way religious, and she obviously did not know anything about my novena.
The day in court went very well for me, but not for my ex.
Another time I had been talking to another member of the prayer group that I belonged to.
She was desperate to become pregnant because she experienced difficulties in this regard.
I had told her a short time previously that I would pray the novena to Saint Therese for her.
One evening, in entering the little side chapel where the prayer meeting was, I noticed
some beautiful lilies in front of the Altar.
At the end of the meeting, the man who was leading, took the beautiful flowers and in an
official kind of way, handed me the flowers, saying they were for me.
The woman who I was praying for, and another woman who also knew about it, were equally
amazed as me. Not long afterwards the woman became pregnant, and shortly after she had
the first child, she was pregnant again with the second.
I actually have a long list of similar episodes, always with flowers!
But once, when I was not even praying the novena, I had gone to Mass without realising that it
was the feast day of Saint Therese (1.October), and as the priest announced it at the start of the
Mass, I was saying to myself that fortunately I had not missed that day's Mass, since it was Saint Therese's feast day, as she was always helping me enormously.
As I went out of the church after Mass, my friend who had waited for me,
handed me a beautiful bouquet of flowers!
He was not religious, and had no idea about Saint Therese's feast day either!
Through her I have come to understand the role of the Saints in the catholic doctrine, how important
they are for us, and how they help us. In helping us with real practical or material problems, they
help us to understand that we can also be sanctified.
In learning about Saint Therese; the events of her family and personal life, her personality,
her character, I see that she was not perfect either; in several aspects she reminds me of myself,
and that encourages me!
She suffered the effects of the loss of her mother,
(twice, as her elder sister who had become her mother substitute also left her ),
she had a nervous breakdown as a young girl,
she was the youngest in the family,
she had a very strong willpower, she was hypersensitive, and suffered from "scrupels"
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