2025 Little Flower Novena
Brothers & Sisters,
With a great and joyful hope, I am writing this letter because I have the privilege of announcing the visitation of the Relics of St. Thérèse October 31 to November 4 at our Little Flower Basilica in San Antonio. All of us friars of the Semi-Province of St. Thérèse feel very blessed to have her Relics visit us during this Jubilee Year of Hope and during the centenary of St. Thérèse’s canonization. At opportunities like this it is good to remember the traditions of our Catholic Church on the veneration of the relics:
When one visits a holy place, a place of pilgrimage such as Basilicas, shrines, or other holy places, we do so in order to experience the presence and the blessings of God in a special way. Moreover, we visit those places or relics to pray and ask for special favors, or to give thanks for favors received from the mercy and love of God the Trinity. For this reason I would like to extend a very special invitation to each one of you to come to San Antonio and venerate St. Thérèse’s relics. Likewise, I extend an invitation to unite ourselves in prayer with The Little Flower during this novena beginning September 22 as we ask for the increase of vocations to the different calls to consecrated life, but especially for St. Thérèse’s Discalced Carmelite Order.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux was in love with and very faithful to her Carmelite vocation. In her book the Story of a Soul, she says,
“The beautiful day of my wedding finally arrived. It was without a single cloud; however, the preceding evening a storm arose within my soul the like of which I’d never seen before. Not a single doubt concerning my vocation had ever entered my mind until then, and it evidently was necessary that I experience this trial. In the evening, while making the Way of the Cross after Matins, my vocation appeared to me as a dream, a chimera. I found life in Carmel to be very beautiful, but the devil inspired me with the assurance that it wasn’t for me and that I was misleading my Superior by advancing on this way to which I wasn’t called.”
(Story of a soul pg 166)
This quotation alllows us to know the Little Flower’s vocation through her own testimony. In other parts of her memoir she also recounts that from the time she was old enough to understand, she had longed to be a Carmelite nun, because in the Carmelite Order all the aspirations of her soul would be fulfilled.
God's call only finds its full expression in a human answer. For this reason, I invite you to join us in praying for the blessing of new vocations and that we in the Discalced Carmel may have the wisdom to help those seeking to hear God's call and form them so that, with the grace of the one who calls them, the new vocations may find fulfillment in their surrender to God, like St. Thérèse. St. Thérèse defined her vocation in a single word: “Love.”
In this Jubilee Year I invite you to journey with us and unite with us in prayer during this novena asking St. Thérèse to intercede for us for all our intentions, but especially for:
An increase in vocations in our church.
That those of us who are called to give ourselves to God be always faithful to the one who called us with a true love for God and for our brothers and sisters.
Perseverance that we may overcome the storms within our souls and any doubts about our vocation that can give us fears that can destroy our vocation.
That we may all be faithful to our Christian vocation and serve God and our church with love.
Together in prayer as one family,
Very. Rev. Luis Joaquin Castañeda, OCD
Provincial