You may wonder, why a post with a prayer of Saint Therese, during this advent season?
Something that came to me in prayer yesterday, was that I must prepare my heart for the Christ Child. I must wrap up my gift, my sufferings and give them to him, who takes all that I will ever endure when he takes up the cross during his passion. This image is everlasting as we go through the seasons of Advent, and the coming of Lent. Christ is alive, his life is ever present in the Mass and the sacrament of holy Eucharist. Just imagine that your cross was especially made for you, it was one of the many splinters that made up the cross that Christ carried for you and me. The vision of this shows me and I pray it shows you just how much He loves you as an individual.
You are that treasure that he holds close to his heart, more precious than gold!
What can I give the Christ Child this year? ME.
The prayer below is that offering of ourselves to Christ… Saint Therese knew suffering, but her suffering was also gifted with a joyful presence. May we learn to embrace the Child Jesus in our lives and may his true presence bring us the joy we need to accept all this life will bring to each of us. May his presence this year fill you with hope and peace! Let us open our hearts to the Christ Child that He may be born into our hearts this Christmas. May we also learn to be that tabernacle of love for him this new year. God bless you!
ACT OF OBLATION OF ST. THÉRÈSE OF THE CHILD JESUS
OF THE HOLY FACE TO THE MERCIFUL LOVE OF GOD
J.M.J.T.
Offering of myself as a Victim of Holocaust to God’s Merciful Love.
9th June 1895
O My God! Most Blessed Trinity, I desire to Love You and make You Loved, to work for the glory of Holy Church by saving souls on earth and liberating those suffering in purgatory. I desire to accomplish Your will perfectly and to reach the degree of glory You have prepared for me in Your Kingdom. I desire, in a word, to be a saint but I feel my helplessness and I beg You, O my God! To be Yourself my Sanctity!
Since You loved me so much as to give me Your only Son as my Saviour and my Spouse, the infinite treasures of His merits are mine. I offer them to You with gladness, begging You to look upon me only in the Face of Jesus and in His heart burning with Love.
I offer You, too, all the merits of the saints (in heaven and on earth), their acts of Love, and those of the holy angels. Finally, I offer You, O Blessed Trinity! The love and merits of the Blessed Virgin, my dear Mother. It is to her I abandon my offering, begging her to present it to You. Her Divine Son, my Beloved Spouse, told us in the days of His mortal life: “Whatsoever you ask the Father in my name He will give it to you!” I am certain, then, that You will grant my desires; I know, O my God! That the more You want to give, the more You make us desire. I feel in my heart immense desires and it is with confidence I ask You to come and take possession of my soul. Ah! I cannot receive Holy Communion as often as I desire, but, Lord, are You not all-powerful? Remain in me as in a tabernacle and never separate Yourself from Your little victim.
I want to console You for the ingratitude of the wicked, and I beg of You to take away my freedom to displease You. If through weakness I sometimes fall, may Your Divine Glance cleanse my soul immediately, consuming all my imperfections like the fire that transforms everything into itself.
I thank You, O my God! For all the graces You have granted me, especially the grace of making me pass through the crucible of suffering. It is with joy I shall contemplate You on the Last Day carrying the scepter of Your Cross. Since You deigned to give me a share in this very precious Cross, I hope in heaven to resemble You and to see shining in my glorified body the sacred stigmata of Your Passion.
After earth’s Exile, I hope to go and enjoy You in the Fatherland, but I do not want to lay up merits for heaven. I want to work for Your Love alone with the one purpose of pleasing You, consoling Your Sacred Heart, and saving souls who will love You eternally.
In the evening of this life, I shall appear before You with empty hands, for I do not ask You, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is stained in Your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in Your own Justice and to receive from Your Love the eternal possession of Yourself. I want no other Throne, no other Crown but You, my Beloved! Time is nothing in Your eyes, and a single day is like a thousand years. You can, then, in one instant prepare me to appear before You.
In order to live in one single act of perfect Love, I Offer Myself as a Victim of Holocaust to Your Merciful Love, asking You to consume me incessantly, allowing the waves of infinite tenderness shut up within You to overflow into my soul, and that thus I may become a martyr of Your Love, O my God!
May this martyrdom, after having prepared me to appear before You, finally cause me to die and may my soul take its flight without any delay into the eternal embrace of Your Merciful Love.
I want O my Beloved, at each beat of my heart to renew this offering to You an infinite number of times, until the shadows having disappeared I may be able to tell You of my Love in an Eternal Face to Face!
Marie, Francoise, Thérèse of the Child Jesus
and the Holy Face, unworthy Carmelite religious.
This 9th day of June,
Feast of the Most Holy Trinity,
in the year of grace, 1895.
The Apostolate of Hannah's Tears 
