August 12 Our Lady of Rouen

"True holiness consists in doing God's will with a smile." Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Our Lady of the Smile

St. Therese of Lisieux and her sisters pray to Our Lady

St. Therese of Lisieux, France (also known as 'Little Flower') is the model for children in relation to gardens. She relied on the waters of God's grace, the sunlight of his illumination, and the breath of his Holy Spirit, as she grew to her full spiritual flowering. (John S. Stokes)

When she was a little girl, her family had a garden with a statue of Our Lady of Consolation. The statue is of Mary with her arms extended. At just ten years old she became gravely ill and the doctors were not able to diagnose her condition. She asked that the statue be brought to her room from the garden. After the statue arrived she looked at Our Lady and the statue smiled at Therese, she then miraculously began her recovery to full health.

That is why it is called Our Lady of the Smile!

Flower of the Day

Pansy Viola tricolor Symbolizes Our Lady's Delight

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Prayer to the Our Lady of the Smile

composed by Mother Adela, sctjm

Gentle Mother, smile in our hearts and heal us!

Your maternal smile heals because it is a reflection of your motherly and immaculate love.

Smile with the tender force of your maternal love and heal our hearts to know love, to receive love, to experience the fullness of love, to live in the path of love and to communicate freely the love we receive. Smile into the depth of our hearts and bring healing to our wounds!

Smile into our hearts and heal the brokenness in our humanity.

Smile and make us whole, with perfect communion of mind, heart, body and soul. Smile, Mother, and heal us with your love!

Smile toward us and cast out all our fears and anxieties.

Smile, Mother, and heal us from all that imprisons love in our hearts.

Smile to our minds and heal the memories that hurt the vision of love.

Smile to our hearts and heal the experiences that have hardened us and have made us run away from love.

Smile to us with your maternal love; and knowing that we are loved, heal us from the fears and hurts that impede us from generously and freely loving.

Smile, O, Mother, and with the radiance of your maternal countenance, heal our bodies from the lack of transparency in communicating the language of love.

Smile, Immaculate Mother, to our souls and heal us from all that is wounded in our communion of love with the Blessed Trinity. Smile, Mother, smile with your love in the deepest recesses of our hearts and heal us; so that, thus restored and freed, we may know the depth, the height, the width and the length of God’s love; so that we may live in perfect bonds of love with other hearts and so that we may ardently witness to love in the Heart of the Church. Smile, Blessed Mother… Smile at us, smile for us.

One smile from your Maternal Heart will heal our hearts.

Our Lady of the Smile, pray for us.

St. Therese of Lisieux, pray for us.

Ave Maria!