Thirty-five years ago today, the Feast Day of St. Thérèse, I received the grace of the Great Event, my instantaneous conversion to the Church and the Eucharistic, through the heart of St. Thérèse. Thérèse has orchestrated and watched over each phase of my life from conversion, through the long, intense suffering of self-confrontation by Jesus Christ, and then to the Kingdom blessed of St. Joan and St. Thérèse. Today I consecrate to her my whole heart, mind, soul, and body and put into her hands the final stage of my life. She is my little mother, Queen and saint; my patroness, my sister.
I give to her my desire to retire in France that we might spend our last years making pilgrimages through France, Spain, and Italy. I pray that my last breath will be in France and that my life and its end will serve the mystical Kingdom of Our Lady’s Catholic and Royal France, that of Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart and that over which Christ is King.
St. Thérèse, my life and its conclusion are in your hands. May you and St. Joan of Arc intercede for me through the final stage of my life and through my last breath that I may enter Heaven with you and St. Joan through the gates of Royaume France and into the center of Mary’s Immaculate Heart.
I share your strong devotion to St Therese, as she brought me into the Church while I spent months in hospital making a partial recovery from a catastrophic auto accident. She showed me the value of redemptive suffering, and I became a Catholic as soon as I could. Her photograph looks down at me above the desk where I am writing, and she is a constant inspiration to me. I’m always going to need a wheelchair, and this is fine, because suffering now has meaning. As we live in England, with my brother and daughter also living in France, we have been able to make many pilgrimages to Lisieux, Pont Main and to the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris (before it burned down). We will pray that you are able to make the move you so desire, and to live in France.
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Thank you so much Elizabeth! What a beautiful lesson you’ve shared. Thank you for your prayers. God bless you, and may St. Joan and St. Thérèse pray for you always.
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