Anonymous - The Little Flower Prayerbook

The Little Flower Prayerbook

A Carmelite Manual of Prayer

Compiled by
The Rev. Columba Downey, O. Carm.

Edited by
The Rev. Albert H. Dolan, O. Carm.

Copyright 1926 by Carmelite Press. Retypeset and published in 2012 by TAN Books

TAN Books
Charlotte, North Carolina
www.TANBooks.com
2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Introduction

Gods ways are not our ways, nor
are His thoughts our thoughts.

W E, being accustomed to the things of sense, conscious only of the passing now called time, allow our vision to be clouded by the mists of earth that shade our view of eternity with hopes, desires and fears that do not go beyond the far horizon line of death. Gods view is from eternity to eternity. Gods saints have ever tried to pierce through the world of phenomenathe world they see and learn and touchso as to reach the world of noumenathe world of things as they really are. They live lives of present-futurity, placing their hopes, desires and love beyond the grave.

The Little Flower of Jesus was raised by the Master in an age of black, repulsive, sensual materialism to lead souls to Him by her little way of trust and absolute self-surrender.

Living for His love but few short years in the little town of Lisieux, she died, by men unknown. But the world today is bowed at her feet, desirous of receiving that shower of roses which she promised she would let fall upon its waste lands from eternity. The world, in spite of its agnosticism, its infidelity, its crimes, its sorrows, its shame; or rather because of these, is forced in deep humility to recognize that truly Gods ways are not its ways, nor are His thoughts its thoughts; while it unconsciously though clearly admits that Gods ways are THE ONLY WAYS; His thoughts, THE ONLY THOUGHTS.

The Carmelite spirit, borrowed from its great Founder, Elias, is one of ZEAL for Gods glory, strengthened by contemplation. And the life of this its latest one of a long line of saintly souls which Carmel has given to the Church, is no exception. She, from her contemplation of God, learned the value of souls, and desired to lead earth to heaven, men to God. She popularized spirituality, made it easy, and enjoyable, and sure.

It is with the intention of helping others along the sure way that this new Prayer Book has been compiled. In it will be found, with the usual Devotions common to the best Manuals of Prayer, the special time-honored Carmelite Devotions, centering round Jesus through Mary. These were the Little Flowers own devotions practised during her life as a Carmelite.

Third Order Carmelites, members of the Carmelite Scapular Sodality, as well as members of the Society of The Little Flower, in fact all the faithful will derive benefit from a perusal of these pages. Almost every prayer is indulgenced. The indulgences are taken from the New Raccolta.

May the faithful, by using these devotions, be led to imitate the Little Way of St. Thrse which leads securely to the Feet of Jesus, and may she shower upon them all an abundance of heavens roses.

COLUMBA DOWNEY, O. Carm.
Chicago. Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. July 16, 1925.

Sketch of the Life of the Little Flower

S AINT THRSE, the Little Flower, whose name in the Convent was Sister Thrse of the Child Jesus anti of the Holy Face, and in the world, Marie Frances Thrse Martin, was born at Alencon in France on January 2, 1873.

At the age of fifteen, she entered the Carmelite Convent, Lisieux, where she distinguished herself chiefly by her burning love of God and her blind trust in Him. It was there she wrote under obedience, her wonderful autobiography.

After prophesying that she would spend her Heaven in doing good on earth, would shower down roses, and would come down to assist her clients, she died in the odour of sanctity on September 30, 1897, aged 24. Many thousands of cures and conversions, innumerable stories of apparitions and perfumes, countless temporal and spiritual graces attributed to her intercession verify her prophecy.

She was beatified April 29, 1923, and canonized May 17, 1925. This little Girl-Saint has become in twenty years the most beloved of all Saints excepting the members of the Holy Family; she who in life was not known five miles from her convent, has in death, become known almost over-night, in every corner of the world.

The explanation of these marvels is that God worked these wonders in her behalfGod made her known so widelybecause she is Gods messenger to the twentieth century.

I will spend my heaven doing good upon earth, she said. I shall let fall from heaven a shower of roses. My work begins after my death. And how marvelously have her prophecies already been fulfilled! She has drawn thousands of little souls to her. She, who in life was not known five miles from her Lisieux convent, in death is known and honored by multitudes throughout the world, by thousands all over distant America, by thousands who so crowd her National Shrine in Chicago every Tuesday that the attention of the whole city is attracted and even Protestants ask, May Non-Catholics go in to see little Thrse?meaning her Shrine. Her Society in America promises to become one of the largest religious organizations in the history of the Church in America, a grand national Society which by its members alone serves already to attract public attention to the Little Flower and to her Little Way.

To the members of the Society of the Little Flower, to all her lovers, Thrse is not dead; she lives. She is alive to them all. They open their arms to receive her rosesroses of healing, roses of financial assistance, roses of relief from trouble and trial, roses of greater love of God, of strength against temptation, roses of the gift of prayer, roses of the virtues of humility, simplicity and purity. The roses drop and are caught by millions all over the world, by thousands of the members of her Society here in America.

Already five volumes, called The Shower of Roses, have been printed to record some of her spiritual and material favors. Every day the Chicago Carmelite Fathers in charge of the Society of the Little Flower receive from all parts of the United States and Canada acknowledgments of favors attributed to the Little Flowers intercession. Pius XI says authoritatively of her shower of roses, We have invoked her as our advocate and our patron because of the rain of roses which, as she promised, she does not cease to pour down upon men.

The nuns of Lisieux said to the Little Flower during her last illness, You will look down upon us from the heights of Heaven, will you not, Sister? No, she replied, I will come down.

She has indeed come down not once but, upon the testimony of most reliable witnesses, hundreds and hundreds of times, always simple, always sweet, always doing good. She has come down not always, however, letting herself be seen, to bring to earth the gifts of the Good God. It has been easy to recognize her, for she still has her own particular way of going good; even in her way of scattering wide her shower of roses we recognize the lovable simplicity of her childlike soul.