St Therese Christmas Miracle

On December 14th Fr Justin Cinnante, O'Carm, directed an Entering Canaan Advent retreat day on "St Therese's Christmas Miracle"

For those of you unfamiliar with the miracle which she stated was life changing, I am posting the content:

When I got home to Les Buissonnets from Midnight Mass, I knew that I should find my shoes standing at the fireplace, filled with presents, as I had always done since I was little, so you can see I was still treated as a baby.

Father used to love to see how happy I was and hear my cries of delight as I took each surprise packet from my magic shoes, and his pleasure made me happier still. But the time had come for Jesus to cure me of my childishness; even the innocent joys of childhood were to go. He allowed Father to feel cross this year, instead of spoiling me, and as I was going upstairs, I heard him saying: “Therese ought to have outgrown all this sort of thing, and I hope this will be the last time.” This cut me to the quick, and Céline, who knew how very sensitive I was, whispered to me: “Don’t come down again just yet; you’ll only go and cry if you open your presents now in front of Father.”

But I was not the same Thérèse any more; Jesus had changed me completely. I held back my tears, and trying to stop my heart from beating so fast, I ran down into the dining room. I picked up the shoes and unwrapped my presents joyfully, looking all the while as happy as a queen. Father did not look cross anymore now and entered into the fun of it, while Céline thought she must have been dreaming. But this was no dream. Thérèse had gotten back forever the strength of mind she had lost at four and a half.

So how does this tie into healing from abortion? sometimes abortion canmake us selfcentered and self occupied. We are so caught up in the trauma of the abortion and the hurts weexperience that we are unable to see beyond ourselves. while it is important and cruicial to look at our abortion experience, it is so we can learn from it. so we can identify the hurts, the people we need to forgive, our personal abortion connectors, so that we canmove through life without thisexperience impacting all that we do.

St Therese's Christmas miracle helped her to stop focusing on herself and her emotions after the trauma of losing her mother. She acquired the strength she needed to move beyond the hurts and give herself to God and others in love. This is not aneasy task and can take time, but God longs to free us. This does not mean we will never feel tempted to fall into past behaviors, but it doesmean we are aware of what is taking place and we are able to change our responses to certain situations.

Jesus longs to free us –