Therese and pilgrimage

I have just heard about a pilgrimage to Lisieux to be held next May and I am pondering joining it.  After all, it will be the centenary of St Therese’s canonisation.  The trouble is very simply that I am not a great pilgrim – nor even much of a traveller.  But whenever I am lured out of my home, I seem to receive graces.  My first visit to Lourdes took place only because my then parish priest asked me to go – and I will never forget that beautiful experience.  Since then, Lourdes became one of the few places that I regularly visit in my mind.  My only visit to the Holy land - on a Carmelite Renewal Course - opened an astonishing tap of graces that has never ceased to flow since: it truly changed my life – but not for any reason that I might have expected.  I can truly say that my life has never been the same again – in a good way of course.  A recent visit to Compostella resulted in a minor miracle – so minor that I am keeping it to myself, but real to me nonetheless.  In each case the graces received were wholly unexpected – but why should I be surprised?  It reminds me of a book that was a best-seller back in the day – God of Surprises by Gerard Hughes SJ.

Intercessions:

Marie – cancer

Siena – infant with severe medical issues

Rosemarie – multiple afflictions

Bernard – cancer, and wife Angela