After I wrote yesterday about sitting before the statue of a saint, my friend Lyrinda replied:

Your saint looks like Saint Therese Lisieux to me.  Here is a bit on her name from The Little Flower Organization: “When she entered the Carmelite Monastery to give her life to God, Marie Francoise Therese Martin took the religious name “Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.”  Therese had a great devotion to the Infant Jesus, and her spirituality was a childlike simplicity and trust in God’s love.  In Lisieux, the Carmelite Monastery had a great devotion to the suffering Holy Face of Jesus.

…

Because Therese was constantly looking to see the hidden Holy Face of Jesus in everyone and everything, Therese took that second part of her religious name.

Thank you, Lyrinda.  May we all see the hidden Holy Face of Love in everyone and everything, whether the Spirit is shown through Jesus, the Buddha, Muhammad, you, me …

Therese was born in 1873 and died in 1897 from tuberculosis.  Twenty-four years on the planet.

I went back to the Carmelite Church this morning to see if Lyrinda was right.  She was.

And I found Therese’s words:

Love can supply for length of years. Jesus, because He is eternal, regards not the time but only love.

The good God does not need years to accomplish His work of love in a soul.  One ray from His heart can, in an instant, make His flower bloom for eternity.

I cast myself into Your arms, and like a little dewdrop, I sink deeper and deeper into Your chalice, O divine Flower of the field, and there I find all I have lost and much more besides.

Living of love is sailing without ceasing, while sowing peace and joy in all hearts.  I am like a beloved helmsman: love compels me, because I see You in all souls.  Love is the only star on which I aim, the light that spreads.  I sail without detours.  My motto is written on my sail: Life of Love.

***

Another fine name added

To my list of future coffee friends