Early in August, ANF friends received a piece of mail containing a small rosette. The rosette symbolized St. Thèrése of Lisieux’s favorite flower, the rose, the symbol with which she is often depicted, and of which she said, “I will make fall a shower of roses.”
For those who returned their rosette with a prayer and/or a gift, ANF proposed to make a wreath to be personally delivered to the main sites reminiscent of St. Thèrése in Lisieux, France, the town in which she was born, lived and died.
Wreath glowed red with 19,834 rosettes!
On this past October 1, the feast of St. Therese, ANF volunteer Mr. Michael Gorre arrived in Lisieux, the proud carrier of a wreath that glowed red with 19,834 rosettes! Mr. Gorre reported that people were amazed at the sheer number evident in the fullness of the wreath.
Each rosette represented a prayer, an offering, a gift to the effort of spreading the Fatima message of prayer and penance across our country, a mission undoubtedly close to St. Thèrése’s missionary heart.
This wreath, from 19,834 American hearts and homes, was first placed at the Buissonnets, St. Thèrése’s house where she lived until age fifteen; then at the Carmel where she professed and died at age twenty-four, and at her Basilica, before the golden reliquary containing her remains. Ultimately the rosette wreath was laid at the cemetery where she was first buried, to this day a place of pilgrimage and hallowed peace.
At each site Mr. Gorre, and two colleagues who met him in Lisieux, Mr. Fernando Nunes and Mr. Marcelo Dufaur, prayed for the intentions of the American TFP, America Needs Fatima, and especially for all those who sent their rosettes to honor St. Thèrése.
May our rosette wreath help obtain from St. Thèrése “a shower of roses” for our country – graces of ever increasing prayer and conversion of life so that America can truly make its own the words, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
by Andrea Philips
St Theresa sent my mother and myself a rose once. I found the house my mother was praying for and just recently I know why St Theresa picked this house-it had a large satelite dish which brings me EWTN free of charge -for 19 yrs. now!!!
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