Crucified, especially the great lesson of love, that my heart may be inflamed with an ardent desire to prove my love by the divine test of suffering even unto the sacrifice of my life as a victim of love. May I, too, learn to understand ever more fully the secrets hidden in His Sacred Face and to realize that true greatness lies in being concealed and despised. Dear St. Therese, by your burning love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, help me to realize the greatness and the priceless value of even a single Holy Mass and Communion, so that I may gladly make any sacrifice or forego any pleasure, rather than miss even once this opportunity of giving joy to Jesus and of drawing for myself the strength I need to prove my love by suffering for Him. May my whole being pant for Him, its true and only blessedness. I also recommend to your intercession the special intentions for which I am making this Novena…. God will refuse you nothing.
Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be.
Other Novena Prayers on page 46.
SIXTH DAY
St. Therese's "Armor of God"
(1) Her Breastplate:—The Gift of Fortitude.—Neither stoicism nor mere natural courage, nor even the Christian virtue of fortitude, suffices to explain the heroic and joyous manner of St. Therese in enduring pain; for even the infused virtues require deliberation and effort and are joined with slowness and labor in their exercise. But by the gift of fortitude one is inclined to submit promptly, joyfully, and spontaneously to even the least indication of the Divine Will also in the matter of suffering. Thus, in the martyrs who shed their blood amid the most frightful tortures it was the gift of fortitude that made them strong and even gay. St. Therese was also a martyr. Hers was an unbloody martyrdom, yet none the less real, and hence she, too, needed this special help. By constant prayer and fidelity to grace she gradually disposed herself for the fulness of the gift of fortitude, so that in due time she yielded without hesitation, though not without intense suffering, to the promptings of the Holy Spirit
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