On this Feast of the Little Flower, St. Therese of Liseaux, as we kneel in front of the Blessed Sacrament tonight, I would like to reflect a bit upon Therese’s profound Eucharistic Devotion,
St. Therese was born into a family with a fervent Eucharistic spirituality. Her parents attended Mass every day, and, as soon as the children were old enough, they would attend mass as well.
Therese and her father went for a walk almost every afternoon, and they never came home without visiting one of the town’s churches or chapels to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. This is how she first encountered the Carmelite Order, during those daily visits to the Eucharist with her Father.
During the school day, Therese would sacrifice her 15 minutes of recreation time e to pray before the tabernacle in the chapel, this occurred even before she made her First Holy Communion.
After she entered Carmel, she was saddened to discover that the Sisters did not receive Communion daily. But daily, she would kneel before the tabernacle and express her desire to receive the Lord.
Once, her cousin wrote to the saint about the great temptations she was experiencing in Paris, and Therese, who was just 16 wrote back: “Oh, my darling, think, then, that Jesus is there in the Tabernacle expressly for you, for you alone, He is burning with the desire to enter your heart ... so don't listen to the devil, mock him, and go without any fear to receive Jesus in peace and love… receive Communion often, very often. . . . That is the only remedy if you want to be healed.”
During the pandemic of the 1890s, her community’s policy regarding frequent communion changed, and Therese writes of “the unspeakable consolation of receiving Holy Communion every day”. After receiving Communion, she would ardently plead with the Lord: “Remain within me, as You do in the Tabernacle. Do not ever withdraw Your presence from Your little host.”
Near the end of her short life, when she had become quite ill, she dragged herself with great effort to receive Communion. One morning after Holy Communion, she was in her cell exhausted. One of the sisters remarked that she should not exert herself so much. The Saint replied, “Oh, what are these sufferings to me in comparison with one daily Holy Communion?”
As we kneel before our Eucharistic Lord tonight, let us ask the intercession of the Little Flower to love him with an ever-purer child like love, to value more deeply the gift of being able to receive Him frequently, to seek the transformation of mind and heart that he wants for us, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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