By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
Homily by Archbishop Thomas Wenski at Mass for the 90th anniversary of Little Flower Church in Coral Gables. Monday, Oct. 17, 2016.
I’m happy to join your pastor, Father (Michael) Davis, his parochial vicars and the other priests here today in celebrating this Mass on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of this parish. This celebration is a warm-up for the 100th anniversary. God willing, we all will be here then to celebrate it.
This is a beautiful church – and I am not referring to this building which is quite lovely – I am referring to you, the parishioners of St. Theresa of the Little Flower. This is a beautiful community of faith, hope and love. This simplicity and practicality of the “Little Flower’s” approach to spiritual life is very much alive in this parish community and its many ministries including the parochial school. From its beginning to the early 1990s, the school was staffed by the Sisters of St. Joseph of St. Augustine. And how blessed we are to have the Carmelite Sisters. Their presence in this parish helps not only to keep alive the memory of your patron saint, but also the presence of consecrated religious reminds us of the primacy of grace in our lives as Christians, and of the universal call of each baptized person to holiness.
St. Theresa of Lisieux, also known as the Little Flower, died in the odor of sanctity in 1897 at the young age of 24. When she was canonized in 1925 she was as popular as St. Francis of Assisi. And so it is no surprise to learn that when this parish was first organized the parishioners wanted their new parish to be named for her. Something similar happened in Hollywood, Florida, and so there are two Little Flowers in what is now the Archdiocese of Miami. Her feast day is October 1st but we celebrate on the anniversary of the parish’s establishment by Bishop Barry of St. Augustine. The first church was dedicated by Bishop (Patrick) Barry in 1928 and the present church where we worship today was dedicated by Archbishop (Joseph) Hurley in 1950.
Both her parents, Zelie and Luis, were canonized by Pope Francis last year. They say that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And so parents, if you want your children to grow in holiness, strive for holiness yourselves.
Marie-Therese Martin, as she was known before she entered the convent at 15 years of age, captured the imagination of much of the Catholic world during most of the 20th century thanks to the posthumous publication of her journal, "The Story of a Soul." She only wrote in obedience to her confessor; but, thanks to his foresight, we are able to know of this young woman who otherwise would have remained in the obscurity of the cloister.
She lived, of course, in the last two decades of the 19th century – at a time when in Europe, the intellectual elites were convinced that human society could be organized without reference to God, a time when people began to believe that they could live as if God did not matter.
But for her – and this is, I believe, the reason for her appeal – nothing else mattered but God. Living the spirituality of Carmel – a spirituality that has given the world such giants of mysticism as Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross –Theresa of the Child Jesus lived always in the presence of God. And this God mattered because it was his Love that sustained the world. Even if her contemporaries no longer thought to care about God, Theresa reminded us that God still cared about us – and that the secret for true happiness was found in us caring enough to seek to please him in all things.
She taught us the “little way” – that is, the road to sanctity is found in turning what a worldly viewpoint might considere insignificant or unimportant into opportunities to do God’s will. To be a saint one did not have to do heroic things or work wonders. One could achieve sanctity by doing ordinary things with great love. When she was still a teenager she learned about the imminent execution of a man by the name of Henri Prenzini. He had brutally murdered a woman and her child and had expressed no remorse for his crime. She decided to storm heaven with her prayers asking for his conversion. He had, I am sure, no idea that she was praying for him but moments before he was guillotined, he took into his hands a crucifix and kissed it three times. Little Theresa was convinced that her prayers were heard. Is the unexpected decision of the Florida Supreme Court on Friday to require a unanimous jury before someone could be given the death penalty a coincidence – or is it a Godincidence brought about through her intercession?
While she was never a trained theologian she understood that the economy of God’s grace is not a zero sum game – God’s forgiveness given freely to me doesn’t mean that there will be less for you. In her “Story of a Soul,”, she writes: “What joy to remember that our Lord is just – that he makes allowances for all our shortcomings, and knows full well how weak we are. What have I to fear then? Surely the God of infinite justice who pardons the prodigal son with such mercy will be just with me ‘who am always with Him’.”
“Keeping ourselves little,” she observed, “means not to lose courage when we are conscious of our faults. We have no fear of telling Jesus that we love him even when we don’t feel it.”
“The Story of a Soul” is a sure guide for anyone seeking to devote themselves more faithfully to the Lord. In fact, Pope John Paul II declared Theresa a doctor of the Church.
To a world that thinks it is good to be important, she teaches us that it is more important to be good. “I wish to teach souls,” she wrote, “the means which I have found so successful, to tell them that there is only one thing to do here below – to offer to the Lord the flowers of our little sacrifices and to capture him with our caresses.” Her “little way,” the way of spiritual childhood, the way of confidence and total abandonment to God, is the perfect antidote to the secularism of our age.
Congratulations on 90 years of parish life here at Little Flower. The history of this parish, like the history of any enterprise made by fallen human beings, has its lights and shadows. As Pope Francis reminds us, the Church is meant to be a field hospital that brings in the wounded from the battlefield. In other words, if Jesus founded the Church to save sinners, we shouldn’t be surprised to find sinners in the Church. But we proclaim that the Church is holy, not because of us but because of the Holy Spirit who, as Jesus promised, continues to guide and to sanctify us through Word and Sacrament.
And so, let us remember these past 90 years with gratitude, and let us embrace the present with enthusiasm and look to the future with confidence. If we can learn from St. Theresa’s example that only God matters; if we can teach our children to place their confidence in God who loves us; if we continue to seek through her intercession a “shower of roses,” the roses of God’s grace; then, the fervent wish of her short life will come true – that she spend her time in heaven doing good on earth.
