{"id":11944,"date":"2022-10-01T12:40:27","date_gmt":"2022-10-01T16:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/notstrictlyspiritual.com\/?p=11944"},"modified":"2022-10-01T12:41:40","modified_gmt":"2022-10-01T16:41:40","slug":"close-encounters-of-the-saintly-kind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/notstrictlyspiritual.com\/saints\/close-encounters-of-the-saintly-kind\/","title":{"rendered":"Close encounters of the saintly kind"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
On this Feast of St. Th\u00e8r\u00e9se of Lisieux, I thought I’d share my close encounter with this beloved saint. I was never a big fan of St. Th\u00e8r\u00e9se. I didn’t have anything against her; I just didn’t connect with the Little Flower in a special way. That all changed one January day in 2015. I was going to Christ the King Retreat House<\/span><\/a> in Syracuse to lead a women’s retreat, and as I got in the car to drive two hours west, I said a prayer to St. Th\u00e8r\u00e9se almost out of desperation. I was in a bad place and needed some help. Pronto. I still don’t know why I settled on this particular saint that day, when I had never prayed to her before. For some reason, she popped into my head. I asked for a sign that she\u2019d taken up my intention and, as we all know, roses are the typical sign people report receiving after praying to the Little Flower.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
A few hours later, I set down my bags in my room at the retreat house. I was tired, I was cranky, and I needed to unpack and get ready to be “on” for the group. I opened the closet door to hang up my clothes. There I was greeted by four enormous bouquets of red velvet roses. (You can see two of them in the photo here.) She works fast, and is pretty showy for a Little Flower. I often forget that she did this for me. So today, on her feast, I’ll send a message of gratitude to her for that long-ago gift and ask for nothing in return. How refreshing and unusual for me! Have you had a close encounter with this saint?<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On this Feast of St. Th\u00e8r\u00e9se of Lisieux, I thought I’d share my close encounter with this beloved saint. I was never a big fan of St. Th\u00e8r\u00e9se. I didn’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[760,92,461],"class_list":["post-11944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-saints","tag-little-flower","tag-saints","tag-st-therese"],"yoast_head":"\nClose encounters of the saintly kind – NSS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"St. Th\u00e8r\u00e9se of Lisieux was never my homegirl, but one day in 2015 that changed when she went above and beyond with a response to my request.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/notstrictlyspiritual.com\/saints\/close-encounters-of-the-saintly-kind\/\" \/>\n<meta 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