Celebrating Spiritual Childhood - Feast of St. Therese of Child Jesus

 

  Celebrating Spiritual Childhood (1^st October 2020)

The Feast of St. Therese is one which fascinates all of us Carmelites. She is known as the Darling daughter of the Church. Her simple and little ways have always been an attraction for us. She used to say “Holiness consists simply in doing God’s will, and being just what God wants us to be.” so we too want to emulate her in our lives too. We, the novices – Shanti and Rajini have gathered fond memories of our first feast that would keep us going a long way on our journey to say our final ‘yes.’

Feasts are occasions to make us to ponder and to reflect the life of the saint and to draw inspirations for ourselves. St. Therese our patron’s entire life is an inspiration but for us who are getting to know her closely for the first time, it was a journey that uplifted our spiritual life. The 9 days of novena which was a preparation for the feast prepared us with various themes. Her spiritual childhood is the sum of all that. She would say “true happiness on earth consists in being forgotten and in remaining completely ignorant of created things. I understood that all we accomplish, however brilliant, is worth nothing without love.” Love ruled her whole life. She wanted to remain as LOVE in the heart of Mother Church. We understood how important it is to make love the centre of our lives.

Our Feast day began with a procession with lamps lit, it was a message that we wanted to tell all that the lamp of love has started burning in our lives and is going to glow in the whole world, whether small or big in whatever we do or say, there will always be love. The liturgy was meaningfully prepared by the novice mistress Sr. Mini Cyriac with creative pauses were given to emphasis the words of Therese and also to make us understand the simplicity with which she prayed. The Eucharist was celebrated by Fr. Patras Kujur, SJ, our spiritual director and confessor. He introduced St. Therese as a prayer warrior who spent her life doing sacrifices and sang songs of gratitude to the Lord. Her whole life was but a prayer of thanksgiving of Love. She became a victim of love and spent her life in service of love. His message really encouraged us to become real messengers of love. In these pandemic times we too like St. Therese could be within the walls of this house yet become prayer warriors for all those suffering outside.

The novitiate community sisters through their simple and humble ways of celebration have made our day special and memorable. Sisters from all the communities of the province poured their wishes on the phone and through video chats. We really express our gratitude and thank God that He chose us to be a Carmelite. We, too like to be another Therese who would spend our life here on earth doing good.

-          Novices: Rajini and Shanti,

St. Francis Xavier Province, INDIA