Last fall, during the building of a new fence between the house next door and our own, I was saddened to discover that the red rose bush in my front yard had been cut down. This was a very prolific plant which produced dozens of roses each summer. I had considered replanting it closer to the house because its colour matched our front door, but I hadn’t found time to do so, and suddenly it was too late.
A few weeks later, a windstorm broke a large tree in our backyard. It broke a section of our old fence and also broke my pink rose bush. I was beginning to feel that I was not meant to have roses in my life, until the summer arrived.
After a bit of trimming and tender loving care, the pink rose bush in the backyard began to flourish. I always prune my roses (just not with the sudden trauma of having a tree land on them!) and the benefits of pruning were showing in the many buds this plant produced. I enjoyed several pink roses throughout the summer and they are continuing into the fall.
As I watered and fertilized the plant, I could not help thinking of St. Therese, the Little Flower, who promised to send roses: “I will send down a shower of roses from the heavens; I will spend my heaven doing good upon earth.”
I have prayed to St. Therese since I was a teenager. I ask her to send me roses, but I always assumed the “roses” would be symbolic signs of heaven, or answered prayers, not actual flowers. I know that many people say she sends them flowers and perhaps she has been sending me flowers all along (the rose bushes in my yard, included) without me recognizing their significance. Well, now I was noticing!
Since the recovered pink rose bush in the garden caught my attention, imagine my amazement when I discovered rose leaves on a plant barely the size of my hand while trimming grass and weeds along the new fence in the front yard! Immediately, I put a wire protector around it to save it from the lawn mower. By August, I had several red roses in my yard again.
St. Therese has always been dear to my heart with her example of sharing God’s love in “little” ways. I pray to her for patience and the ability to see Christ in others. In my heart, I have always felt that she was with me in a special way, but now my eyes are filled with evidence of her presence and continued reminders of my need to follow her “little way.”
Not only is my yard blessed with roses, recently on a hike in Golden Ears Park with my students, several pink rose petals were seen along the path. No rose plants were in sight, just random piles of petals in several locations. As a teacher, I know I need patience each school year. Perhaps St. Therese was reminding me to be more aware of the patience I lack.
St. Therese’s feast day is October 1. I will pray a novena to her, and I will continually give thanks each time I see a rose – in my yard, in the grocery store and even in unexpected places like a park trail! I will pray for patience in my family life, my school life, and in all of my interactions. Above all, I will ask her to intercede for me, as I strive to spread God’s love in little ways, one day at a time.
While I still have a lot of growing to do, the roses in my life assure me that St. Therese is listening. May the Little Flower bless your life abundantly, as well.
My Novena Rose Prayer
O Little Therese of the Child Jesus, please pick for me a rose
from the heavenly gardens and send it to me as a message of love.
O Little Flower of Jesus, ask God to grant the favors
I now place with confidence in your hands …
(mention in silence here)
St. Therese, help me to always believe as you did in
God’s great love for me, so that I might imitate your “Little Way” each day.
Amen.