One of my favorite places to attend Daily Mass during the week is at Mount St. Francis, a Franciscan retreat center near where I live. The main chapel is still very much like it was before the reforms of Second Vatican Council. There are side alters along the walls where each priest used to offer his own Mass alongside the Mass being celebrated at the main high altar (nowadays, If more than one priest is present for a liturgy, they concelebrate that same liturgy together with one priest as the main celebrant) Each alter has a statue of a saint, not for worshipping that saint, as our worship is for God alone, but as a memorial of that saint, and a way to ask for that saint's prayers (For an excellent spoken word piece on Mary and the Saints by Fr. Pontifex, click here.) Two of the Saints in particular stick out to me, St. Therese of Liseaux, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary.
St. Therese was a French Carmelite nun who, At the direction of her superior, wrote down her reflections and kept a diary. Her writings we're so influential, that, after her death, she was not only declared a saint, but a Doctor of the Church, one of the highest honors the Catholic Church can bestow upon anyone. However, one of the most amazing parts of St. Terese's story is that she died at the age of 24.
St. Elizabeth of Hungary has a similar story. She was a princess of Hungary who showed amazing concern for the poor after her husband died by using her dowry to open a hospital where she herself cared for the dying poor. Like St. Therese, St. Elizabeth died at 24.
I will be 24 in May. I certainly hope to live much beyond that age. But it challenges me, to think these two women both died when they were not much older than me. In that time, they accomplished enough to be declared Saints of the Catholic Church. They showed us that it doesn't matter how old we are; God can work wonders through us. They show us that it doesn't take very long at all to make enough for the difference that people whisper your name in churches where you are memorialized
I'm certainly not saint material now, but I hope to be someday. I look to St. Therese and St. Elizabeth as an inspiration. They're two of many young saints in the Church, and they inspire us all to strive for greatness.
St Therese of Liseaux, pray for us.
St. Elizabeth of Hungary, pray for us.
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