Fr Paul reads from the Gospel of Luke (10: 13-16) in which Jesus says ‘Anyone who listens to you listens to me; anyone rejects you rejects me; and those who reject me reject the one who sent me.’. After reading the Gospel Fr Paul shares a little about the life of St Therese of the child Jesus, whose memorial we celebrate today.

Marie-Francoise-Therese Martin was born in Alencon, France in 1873. Her mother, sadly, died of breast cancer when Therese was four and the family moved to Lisieux. Therese became a nun at the Carmelite Convent there at the age of 15. She died of tuberculosis in 1897 at the age of 24.

Two years prior to her death, the prioress of the convent commanded Therese to write her memoirs. A year later (one year before her death) she presented six full exercise books of those memoirs.  The prioress on receiving them simply put them in a drawer and they remained unread.

A year after her death, the memoir was published, and it was then that miracles started to happen.

Thirteen years after her death the canonization process was started, and Therese was made a saint in 1925.

On this day, as we celebrate the live of St Therese of the Child Jesus, Fr Paul says, we ask her to pray for us.