We began the third day of our pilgrimage in Lisieux, with a European breakfast and a departure from our hotel at 8:30 am on foot. Our guide, Vanessa, led us through the cobbled streets of Lisieux, and we got our first real look at its quaint houses and the greenery of the rolling French countryside beyond its borders. We had hardly begun our walk when we reached the gates of a Carmelite convent. This place was, for nine years, the home of our sweet friend, Therese of Lisieux. This girl was robbed of her mother, who died of cancer when she was just four and a half. She lost her sisters as they each took the habit. Yet God took this weak girl, always teary eyed and so afraid of being abandoned, and made her a doctor of the church. Through her little way of trust and love, she has brought many to Jesus' side. Including the thirty six of us. We viewed what we could of the convent, beyond the walls where her little sisters in Christ still live the Carmelite way, and prayed in her chapel, home to the relics of the Little Flower herself. After a time in prayer and contemplation, we left the Carmel and traveled by bus to Therese's childhood home, affectionately referred to by the French as Les Buissonnets. In small groups, we walked through the impeccably preserved home, the halls, the dining room, and the bedrooms all so similar to how they must've been when little Therese grew up there. Little she may have been, but this woman who lived only twenty four years has a legacy that has inflamed the church with love to its core. This truth was in full display for us as we drove to the highest point in Lisieux. It is there that the grand basilica of St. Therese stands proud over France. From the grandeur of the basilica, we descended to a crypt beneath where Fr. Ray celebrated mass for us in a private chapel. Following mass, we spent time in prayer at the reliquary of St Therese's parents, Zelie and Louis Martin, the first married couple to be canonized together. After a short lunch, we traveled from Lisieux to the American Cemetery at Normandy Beach. This impeccably manicured cemetery with its rows upon rows of white marble crosses is a beautiful yet sobering reminder of the price of freedom and the true gift of human courage and sacrifice. From Normandy Beach, we traveled to Mont Saint-Michel, a fortress caught between land and sea. We'll explore it tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment