So I want to speak about my own personal experience of St. Therese's involvement in my life and how she led me to love the Blessed Virgin Mary more. I cannot say that I had a particular devotion to her nor can I say that I particularly enjoyed her book "Story of a Soul" even though I know that it is a wonderful book. I guess I didn't have much of a personal connection, nevertheless, I would often ask her intercession simply because I knew that she is a powerful intercessor before God. In fact, she helped me very much in discerning my call to enter the seminary.
So in 2005, my family went to Spain for a 2 week trip that would include a tour of Barcelona as well as some other cities in the Northwest part of Spain near France. It was quite a wonderful trip and the highlight would be that we would cross over the Pyrenees and into France so that we could make a stop in Lourdes. I was looking forward to the entire time given that I was about to enter the seminary and have a devotion to Our Lady. The timing was also going to be perfect given that it was going to be the feast of the Visitation towards the end of May. We arrived in Lourdes that morning and it was a soft mist of rain (as it usually is near the French mountains) and got out expecting to spend the whole day touring the apparition site. For whatever the reason, my Dad was really frustrated and wasn't liking the weather and so he decided that we were only going to stay for 2 hours. It took him a while to come that conclusion, but upon arriving at Lourdes he decided without asking anyone else in the family that we were staying for 2 hours and then leaving promptly. I was so infuriated that I cannot even begin to describe how angry I was. I was so angry that my brother and I just stormed away and decided to run around Lourdes as fast as we could to go see all the different sites there.
It was raining but we didn't care one bit, and it turned out to be an incredible experience. Nevertheless, I was so angry because we didn't even have enough time to go into the baths or see the nighttime Rosary procession. We didn't even go to Mass there!!! We ended staying at some ugly little town about 1 hour away, meanwhile we could have stayed in the Lourdes where there are plenty of beautiful hotels. I remained angry almost the entire rest of the trip (which was about another week). A bit later we stopped a small French town to get some lunch and I was still so angry that I walked off to go visit a cemetery that happened to be nearby. I saw that there was also a Church just right there and so I decided to go inside to pray and beg God to help me forgive my father, something that seemed impossible at the time. I went inside and found the most beautiful statue of St. Therese and I sat there and just prayed for sometime. I still remember that statue because it had glass eyes and so looked almost as if it was real. I knew that St. Therese had heard me, and so I became able to forgive my father over the next few days....
Flash forward 3 years....
It was towards the end of May on memorial day when a few friends and I decided to go to the beach to go have some fun. We had been having some parties that weekend and I had been eating a little bit too much but we all went to bed looking forward to the next day. I woke up the next morning feeling that I was still somewhat full as if I hadn't digested anything, but I ignored it, took a shower, and got ready to go to the beach. Well on the way there, I started getting nauseous and asked them to stop. You can imagine what happened!!! I got sick and had to be left in the house the whole day because I started feeling terrible. Well, it got worse over the next few days as I hardly ate anything. It culminated the following Wednesday when I did eat and felt in such pain that later that night I had to be taken to the emergency room. It was now Thursday morning and it was clear that I had an intestinal obstruction. They had to place in me an NG tube (I don't even want to go there...) and I was in the hospital for the next few days...3 to be exact. I was worried because there was a chance that they had to do surgery on me, which could have turned a more complicated issue. I have even heard of people who have died from similar situations. So I was in the Hospital May 29, 30, 31, and was released the 1st. I had my initial scans done on Thursday showing the obstruction. I had a second one done on the 30 (Friday) showing that there was no change and that surgery was imminent but the doctor was going to wait one more day before deciding. Well a friend visited me later that Friday with a small glass container. What is that? I asked her...She said...It's Holy water from Lourdes. I felt like God had sent her and so I drank some of the Holy water.
I kept praying that day and simply waiting and dealing with some of the pains of being in a hospital. So many friends had been visiting me and so many people had been praying for me that I concretely felt God's graces throughout the whole situation. So I went to bed that Friday night awaiting the next scan on Saturday to see what the Doctor would say. I was scanned...and guess what they said...the obstruction had been cleared...and all they had to do is wait for is my body to do its normal thing....I had my first liquid food later that Saturday....and was released the following Sunday.
Wait a minute....what just happened??? Let me just recap some of the details you may have missed...I received Holy Water from Lourdes exactly 3 years after I was there in Spain. Guess what feast day I received the news of my healing? The feast of the Visitation of Mary. Think about it...what is that feast about??? The Blessed Virgin Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth. Not only did she visit Elizabeth, brothers and sisters, She visited ME!! She healed me through the Lourdes water. And listen to what I just realized a few weeks ago...guess who's on the cover of the glass bottle....St. Therese......she did hear my prayer in a way more amazing than I could possibly imagine!!! I still have the bottle in my room with plenty of Lourdes water ready to heal at a moments notice....
Praise Jesus and His Blessed Mother!!!!
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