Snow and The Little Flower

Patrick has already written a lovely post about Father Mike describing what has been going on. I don't want to. Father Mike changed my life. He catechised me, baptised me, and heard my confessions. He was a mentor and friend, and I love him.

When I woke up on Ash Wednesday, I looked out our living room windows and saw the world covered in a light blanket of snow. My first thought was of St. Therese. She loved the way the world looked when covered in snow, and she prayed and wished that she would see snow on the day of her final profession. Problem: her final profession of vows was scheduled for a day in October (I think), and it was seventy degrees. She went to mass, enjoying the weather and in love with Christ, and when she left the church, it had snowed. "Wasn't that a lovely gift for Christ to give to his litte bride?" she asks.

Father Mike put a statue of St. Therese in the Calvert House chapel. That particular statue of the Little Flower had passed through the hands of several suffering people— a dying woman, a priest recovering from alcoholism and drug addiction— before it came to rest in Calvert House, where it can now comfort our mourning community.

I felt too hollow on Wednesday to be truly comforted. On seeing the snow, however, I knew that St. Therese was looking out for us. Christ, for their wedding, gave her a beautiful veil. When I'm sad and I see snow, I know St. Therese is wrapping us up in it, like a mother preparing her daughter for her first communion.