Invitation to Prayer
St. Thérèse of Lisieux, age 22, in 1895.
The feast of St. Thérèse of Lisieux is coming on October 1. (That's why our annual Vision Dinner is October 3 this year; it's the Friday closest to her feast day.)
If you start a novena to St. Thérèse on Monday, your nine days of prayer will climax on the eve of her feast.
There's plenty to pray about. Let's pray for our world and our country. Let's pray for our students and our families. Let's pray for more students and more donors, in order to grow, protect, and secure Martin Saints.
The Church and the world need our school. In the end, all of our prayers integrate, because Martin Saints is a ministry to our families, an oasis in our culture, a part of the Church's renewal.
Magnificat magazine is offering a free Thérèse novena email each day, starting Monday and ending on the feast. You can sign up here to pray with us, and to learn about St. Thérèse in the process. Although her spirituality is known as "the little way," this woman is a giant of theology, prayer, and spirituality. Her intercession is effective and real. You want to get to know her.
Yesterday at school, we had a visit from three Capuchin Sisters of Nazareth. These beautiful, radiant women are contemplatives, like St. Thérèse. The Capuchin Sisters rarely leave their rustic convent in upstate Pennsylvania. They "live Nazareth," recalling Jesus's quiet, hidden years. They mentioned waking up at 2am every morning for matins, when they regularly pray for our school. As brides of Christ, they wake and pray with a profound sense of spiritual motherhood for the whole world. We are so grateful to all the contemplatives and monastics who quietly uphold us all through prayer. What untold mercies and protection we owe to their intercession.
Let's join them in prayer for these nine days! You don't have to wake at 2am (although praying in the wee hours, when you happen to find yourself awake, is always a good idea!). But we do recommend signing up for the novena.
The Capuchins shared their vocation stories with our students. One of them, Sr. Francis, talked about rediscovering her faith as a college student. She said that her heart was hardened, that she had many layers of pride and fear that needed to be peeled away, until she had the courage to say "yes." The secret that finally unlocked her heart, after years of struggle? A novena to St. Thérèse!
Three brides of Christ: Sr. Joseph, Sister Grace Marie, Sr. Francis. They visited on Thursday and invited us deeper into prayer, to listen for God at work in our lives.
