Fr. Alan's homily for Sunday October 1st 2006

Today is the feast of Saint Therese of Lisieux, the patron of the Parish of Ringwood.

Therese Martin was born at Alencon in 1873 and, though underage, persisted in her intention of taking up the life of a cloistered religious, even memorably heckling Pope Leo XIII at an Audience, in trying to present her petition to him.

Finally, she succeeded. She entered the Carmelite Monastery at Lisieux at the age of fifteen. Such was her adaptation to the life that at only twenty two she became the mistress of novices. However, almost immediately she contracted tuberculosis, which after a long and painful struggle, was responsible for her death in 1897. She was twenty four years of age.

Her short life was remarkable. She was as strong willed in her pursuit of the Carmelite life as at the end she proved to be in her struggle with illness. She was remembered for her simplicity and directness and her patient endurance in what was at that time a dreaded disease leading to a painful death.

She left behind her an autobiography, letters and books of conversations with her religious sisters. These show how determined she was to seek God, to put nothing before the love of Christ and to make herself, despite the seclusion and suffocating life of a late nineteenth century female closed religious community, into a powerful resource of intercession for the Church and in particular for the Church's Missionary work.

After her canonisation in 1925 she quickly became a very popular saint, with many churches dedicated to her in the period between the two world wars. Though her reputation was tarnished because of the over editing and misrepresentation of her writings by her fellow nuns, eventually the true picture of this remarkable young woman emerged after the Second World War.

We honour her today as one who shared the determination of Christ to set fire upon earth and participated in a real sense in the Lord's passion. We honour her as one who never let go of faith, hope and, above all, love for everyone around her and for the whole Catholic Church. We honour her and ask for her intercession, that we may be better disciples and ambassadors of Christ.