By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
Archbishop Thomas Wenski preached this homily at Mass for the 100th anniversary of Little Flower Church in Hollywood Oct. 1, 2024, which coincided with the feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus.
Today, on the feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, popularly known as “the Little Flower,” we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of this parish. At 100 years old, this parish is one of the oldest in the Archdiocese. (When my parents moved to Florida, after they got married in Detroit in 1947, they settled in Boca. But they would drive down US 1 on Sunday morning for Mass here at Little Flower. There wasn’t a Catholic church between Boca and Hollywood, except for St. Anthony’s. But at that time, the old St. Anthony’s Church was so dilapidated that my mom thought it was going to fall down, so they came here.)
In the first part of the 20th century, St. Therese, who died in 1897, was tremendously popular, so popular that here in South Florida, we have two “Little Flowers,” one here and one in Coral Gables. Hollywood Catholics insisted that their new parish bear the name of the soon to be canonized St. Therese. And as they say, the rest is history.
But who is this Theresa who was so popular a saint in religious devotion through much of the twentieth century and who was declared a “Doctor” of the Church by Pope John Paul II in 1997, a hundred years after her death?
St. Theresa of the Child Jesus appeared on the world scene in the early 20th century – a few years after her death at age 24. She lived, of course, in the last two decades of the 19th century – a time when in Europe, the intellectual elites were convinced that human society could be organized without reference to God. This was the radical humanism that grew up from the Enlightenment and then morphed into the various ideologies of the 20th century. These ideologies self-consciously denied the existence of God – or, if not denying his existence outright, they judged his existence to be irrelevant to “real life.”
In other words, Marie-Therese Martin, as she was known before entering the convent at the age of 15, came of age in a time when people began to believe that they could live as if God did not matter. But, for her – and this is, I believe, - the reason for her appeal, nothing else mattered but God.
Living the spirituality of Carmel – a spirituality that has given the world such giants of mysticism as Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross – Theresa of the Child Jesus lived always in the presence of God. And this God mattered because it was his Love that sustained the world. Even if her contemporaries no longer thought to care about God, Theresa reminded us that God still cared about us – and that the secret for true happiness was found in us caring enough to seek to please him in all things. She taught us the “little way” – that is, the road to sanctity is found in turning what a worldly viewpoint might considered insignificant or unimportant into opportunities to do God’s will. To be a saint, one did not have to do heroic things or work wonders. One could achieve sanctity by doing ordinary things with great love. This is what she teaches us in her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, a journal she wrote in obedience to her confessor.
Santa Teresa es una santa moderna para nuestra era moderna, sirve como correctivo al intento de nuestra época de vivir como si Dios no existiera. Por ello, el Papa San Juan Pablo II la vio como la patrona de la Nueva Evangelización para el nuevo milenio. Que busquemos por su intercesión una “lluvia de rosas”, las rosas de la gracia de Dios; entonces, el ferviente deseo de su corta vida se hará realidad: pasar su tiempo en el cielo haciendo el bien en la tierra.
La Pequeña Flor todavía tiene mucho que enseñarnos: podemos crecer en santidad si hacemos las pequeñas cosas con mucho amor.
As you celebrate your 100 years, look back on the past with gratitude. God has done so much good for so many people in this parish. We can only be grateful for those priests and sisters that have served here over the years. For pioneer parishioners, who built this church and succeeding generations of parishioners, including each one of you, who have contributed to its growth and to the witness of the faith here in South Broward. But live the present with enthusiasm. The Little Flower still has much to teach us: we can grow in holiness if we do the little things with great love. And look to the future with confidence – and let us expect that in the years to come, the Little Flower will bring to you a “Shower of roses”. St. Therese will continue in the next one hundred years to spend her time in heaven doing good on earth – and here at Little Flower Church and School in Hollywood.
