Meet Our Patron Saint
​My name is Amy and I'm really glad that you are here! I'm so excited to tell you about my very favorite Saint who also happens to be the Patron Saint of Catholic Kids 101!
​
It is a wonderful thing to have a Patron Saint as a special friend and helper. A Patron Saint protects and guides a person or place by their prayers of intercession from Heaven. If we ask someone on earth to pray for us, how much more powerful are the prayers of our brothers and sisters in Heaven who are so close to God!
​
Instead of telling you our Patron Saint's name right off the bat, I thought it would be fun to give you a chance to be a detective. I will give you 18 clues. Can you figure out who our Patron Saint is? Let's get started!
​CLUE #1
Our Patron Saint had a dog named Tom.
CLUE #2
​Our Saint was three years old when the telephone was invented.
CLUE #3
Our Patron Saint was a crybaby.
​When our Patron Saint was eight years old, it was really difficult for her to be away from her family. (Now you know our Saint is a girl!) She would be anxious and unhappy when she had to go to school. She was super sensitive and cried a lot. She even wrote this about herself, "I was no longer anything more than a sweet little girl who was a big cry baby."
CLUE #4
Our Saint loved it when her father took her fishing with him.
CLUE #5
One time our Patron Saint got herself into funny trouble!
​
Our Saint explains exactly what happened: “Victoria was ironing the clothes and she had at her side a bucket of water. I was watching her and at the same time swinging on a chair, which was a habit of mine. All of a sudden, the chair slipped from under me and I fell, not on the floor, but into the bucket! My feet met my head and I filled the bucket like a little chick fills an eggshell! I was soaked to the skin!”
CLUE #6
​Our Patron Saint suffered from "scruples."
When our Saint grew a little older, she started to have a problem with scruples. Scruples is a terrible suffering. It is when a person thinks they are committing big, serious, mortal sins when they really aren't. They feel paralyzed. They can even be afraid to receive Jesus in Holy Communion because feel so unworthy. To have confidence in Jesus and receive Him in Holy Communion is actually the remedy! Our Saint was freed from her scruples a year and half later on Christmas Eve when she was thirteen years old. She said that Jesus healed her by making her mind "strong and courageous!"
CLUE #7
When our Saint was 13 years old the dishwasher was invented.
CLUE #8
Our Patron Saint really wanted to be a Saint!
But she would read the lives of some of the Saints, like the great Saint Francis Xavier, and wonder, "How could I ever be a Saint?" It seemed so hard!
Saint Francis Xavier left his family and traveled to far away lands to tell people about Jesus. He had to learn different languages and cultures and suffer many hardships as a missionary priest. He did great and wondrous deeds for Jesus! He baptized and taught thousands and thousands of people.
​
Our Patron Saint knew she wasn’t capable of doing the heroic works and big penances like the Saints she read about. So she talked with Jesus about this and He gave her understanding. Here is what our Patron Saint wrote, “Jesus agreed to teach me this mystery. He set before me the book of nature. I understood how all the flowers He has created are beautiful, how the splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not take away the perfume of the little violet or the delightful simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all flowers wanted to be roses, nature would loose her springtime beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wild flowers.
A beautiful picture of a field of wild flowers taken during the springtime in the French countryside.
And so it is in the world of souls, Jesus’ garden. He willed to create great souls comparable to lilies and roses, but He has created smaller ones and these must be content to be daisies or violets destined to give joy to God’s glances when He looks down at His feet. Perfection consists in doing His will, in being what He wills us to be. I understood, too, that Our Lord’s love is revealed as perfectly in the most simple soul who resists His grace in nothing as in the most excellent soul.”
Our Patron Saint then understood that if she did even the littlest thing with love for Jesus, it would be counted as something great in His eyes! How did she do this? She said, “The best rule is that we should follow what love inspires us to do from moment to moment, with the only desire of pleasing the good Lord in everything He asks of us." Our Patron Saint called this her "little way."
CLUE #9
Our Patron Saint was an Artist.
Our Patron Saint liked to write plays and compose poems. She was also an artist. She always tried to use her gifts and talents for God's glory! Here are three pictures of Jesus that she created. Two are paintings and one is a drawing. Just click the arrows on the side of the circles to see all three.
CLUE #10
Our Patron Saint had a Patron Saint!
She had devotion to many of the Saints but her favorite was Saint Joan of Arc!
Clue #11
Our Patron Saint talked with the Pope!
A stained glass window showing our Patron Saint meeting with Pope Leo XIII
​When our Patron Saint grew a little older, she knew she didn’t have a vocation to be a wife and mother. Our Saint had a vocation to be a cloistered nun. Cloistered nuns aren't sisters who are teachers or nurses, serving in the busy world. Instead, they live together in a little community where they pray and love Jesus in a very special, quiet way.
Women who are called to this kind of vocation are very happy to live this way for Jesus! They spend a lot time praying. They especially pray that people who are very far away from loving Jesus will repent from their sins and follow Him.
​
Our Saint knew she wanted to be a cloistered Carmelite nun. She wanted to enter the monastery when she was fifteen years old. However, her bishop said she was too young and would have to wait until she was twenty-one. But our Saint was determined. Her father even took her on a pilgrimage to Rome where she met the Pope! Our Saint knew if the Pope said "yes" then everybody else would agree. She asked the Pope to let her be a Carmelite nun at the age fifteen. The Pope didn't say, "Yes." He said, "You will enter if God wills it!"
​
Two months later permission was granted. The Bishop changed his mind and said she could start her vocation as a Carmelite nun at the age of fifteen.
Clue #12
​Our Patron Saint shares her "little way" of loving Jesus.
​Our Saint became a Saint by doing everything, big and small, for love of Jesus! Her secret was what she called her "little way." The "little way" isn't a set of rules or a formula that you follow. The "little way" is an attitude. It is a decision that you make to do everything for Jesus because you love Him and have confidence in Him! And the great thing is that it is possible for everyone to have this attitude and live the "little way" of love just like our Saint.
CLUE #13
​The bicycle was invented when our Saint was a teenager.
CLUE #14
Our Saint lived in the country of France.
CLUE #15
​Our Patron Saint became sick with tuberculosis.
​During the time our Saint lived, there was a sickness that was common called tuberculosis. Our Saint got this sickness and died from it when she was only 24 years old. There were hardly any people who missed her after she died. Only the nuns in the convent, her relatives and a handful of people who knew her before she became a nun.
CLUE #16
Our Patron Saint's book goes everywhere!
After our Saint died, a little book was published that our Saint had written about her life. (That is a picture of her actual writing desk.) It is a custom that when a nun in a cloistered community dies, the story of her life is sent to nuns in other cloistered communities so they can read about her. Our Saint's book was only meant for nuns to read.
However, there was Someone who had big plans for our Saint’s little book that told the story of her life. This Person was our Saint’s very best friend. Yes! Jesus! And if your very best friend is Jesus, that’s all that matters. Jesus wanted everyone to know about our Saint’s “little way” of loving Him. He knew that everyone could do it!
The Holy Spirit guided that little book so that many people in the country of France began to read it. Then they sent it to their friends in other countries and more and more people came to know about our Saint’s “little way” of loving Jesus.
Just to give you an idea, less than 30 years after our Saint died, before she was ever declared a Saint, more than 30 million picture prayer cards and 17 million relic cards were sent out by just 20 nuns from the convent where our Saint had lived. That is how many requests they received from people all over the world! All these people asked our Saint to pray for their special needs and Jesus answered those prayers by showering down many graces and even miracles! Our Saint “took the world by storm” and helped people everywhere love Jesus!
CLUE #17
​This is our Saint's Basilica!
Our Saint never traveled to far away places to tell people about Jesus like the great missionaries. However, when our Saint was a nun, she prayed that people all over the world would come to know and love Jesus!
​
Because of the astounding number of miracles and the scores of people who came to love and follow Jesus through her prayers of intercession, the Church declared her the second Patron Saint of Missionaries. Saint Francis Xavier, who I told you about earlier, was the one Patron Saint of Missionaries. Now there are two: Saint Francis Xavier and our Saint!​
CLUE #18
Have you figured out who our Patron Saint is yet?
If not, here is the very last clue. In the original Catholic Kids 101 story and audiobook titled: "The Story of Gemma and the King," Gemma is running by a swimming pool when she slips, hits her head and blacks out. Our Patron Saint shows up in her dream. She was Gemma's "mon amie!"
OUR CK101 PATRON SAINT
"The Little Flower of Jesus"
With her sister Celine
Your friends at CK101
"The Little Flower of Jesus"
Saint Thérèse said, “When I die, I will send down a shower of roses from the heavens… I feel my mission is soon to begin, to make others love God as I do, to teach others my little way. I will spend my Heaven doing good upon earth.”
We can join Saint Thérèse in her mission and together, by living the "little way" of loving Jesus, we can help more people come to know and love Jesus too!​
Saint Thérèse, Patron of Catholic Kids 101, pray for us!
Help all of us to become "kids telling kids about Jesus!"
​Love,
Your CK 101 and Saint Thérèse friend ,
Amy
