I picked my mother’s favorite saint as my confirmation name because I didn’t know what else to choose. I’m not sure I would have picked Saint Therese without my mom’s interest. As popular as she is, I had a hard time reading her book (though I’ve done it twice). I didn’t get through the Pope’s latest letter on her. I don’t relate. And yet, she’s also my favorite saint. When I make rosaries, I’ve been using a centerpiece with her image and a request to “Pray for Us” on the back. Why? God is just like that.
Roses for Mom
My mother always loved roses. I’m not sure if she loved them first and then found Saint Therese or if she found the saint and then fell in love with roses, but all roses were always a good thing in her view. She told me several stories of when she’d prayed about a situation and been rewarded with a rose. Before I was born, she had a surgery to identify if a lump in her breast was cancer. She woke up and saw her nurse’s name tag read “Rose,” and she knew she was okay.
We see roses as a good sign. I’m not sure if this is totally superstitious and silly, but I’m blaming it on Saint Therese. When we went to pick out a duplex for my dad after my mother passed, there were roses on the front door. When I selected an independent living facility for him, there was a beautiful bouquet of roses in the lobby when I visited. I’m getting a puppy in a week, and everything about the situation seemed too good to be true between available date, cost, and location. When I arrived to pick one from the litter, I learned the mother’s name was Rosie and the breeder’s fence line was lined with roses.
Several years ago, I got a tattoo on my leg of a cross with roses on it. My dad, who has never been enthusiastic about tattoos, asked me why. “Cross for Jesus, roses for Mom.” He thought for a second and said, “Oh. Okay.”
Friends for Decades
My mother’s friends had some little group for Saint Therese. I don’t know anything about the group other than it existed. I don’t remember any of the ladies involved, except my “aunt,” one of my mother’s best friends and my godmother. They showed up in force at my mother’s visitation though.
For some reason, the priest only said 3 decades of the Rosary at the visitation. I didn’t know why, though I didn’t care at the time as I wasn’t attending church and hadn’t for many years. I was just glad it was over! But my mother’s friends were not done. They walked right up to the casket immediately after the service concluded to finish out the last two decades. This small act had a lasting impression on me, and was one of several things which led me back to the church a year or two later.
I’ve recently taken up the hobby of making rosaries. It is like wire and bead jewelry, just with the end result prayer beads instead of something fashionable. It is an opportunity to pray and also reminds me of my mom and her friends.
Patron Saint of Cheesecake
I’m on my church’s parish council. Every meeting, a member shares the saint of the month, informing everyone else about about the saint and offering details everyone else may not know. The person before me talked about Saint George, and as we have a Saint George’s donut shop here in town, she brought donuts.
When it was my turn, I wanted to bring food and selected cheesecake. I use my mother’s recipe, and it is the best cheesecake. I’m not even bragging here, only sharing the truth! I collected notes on most of the stories I shared above, and showed up early with plates, forks, napkins, and two cheesecakes with a choice of strawberry or cherry topping. I also brought some lovely laminated prayer cards.
There’s no reason to connect cheesecakes to Saint Therese, but I didn’t let that stop me. My mother’s favorite recipe and my mother’s favorite saint make the perfect match, so in my world, Saint Therese is the patron saint of cheesecake. Everyone enjoyed my story and my priest laughed a lot at my admission I didn’t mind not finishing that Rosary early at my mom’s visitation.
She Picked Me
A few days after the parish council meeting, I was standing outside the church following the funeral of a friend’s mom. My priest stopped by to thank me for my story again, so I had to explain it to several other friends standing there. As we did that, I overheard another friend, also a priest, mention Saint Therese in another conversation.
When I got home, I shot him a message asking him about the discussion. He shared the story, and I joked how odd it was how often Saint Therese had come up that week and how often she had over the course of my adult life. “It is like she picked me,” I joked.
“She does that,” he replied.
In seminary, a speaker had told them that. Saint Therese just picks people for her army. Ready or not, read her book or not, or feel connected or not. He suggested perhaps she has something to offer, perhaps something I am lacking.
Maybe something like working on “doing small things with great love.”
Pray for Us
If you’re not Catholic, you may not understand our affinity for the saints. We ask them to pray for us and believe they hear us, care about us, and do pray for us. To us, it is no different than asking a friend alive and well to pray for us in intercessory prayer.
I continue to ask Saint Therese to pray for us, even if we likely would not have been friends if we’d been alive at the same time.
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