St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus

October 1

St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus (1873 - 1895)

Thérèse, like so many saints, sought to serve others, to do something outside herself, to forget herself in the acts of love. She is one of the great examples of the gospel paradox that “we gain our life by losing it”, and that the seed that falls to the ground must die in order to live (John 12:24).

On October 1, Catholics honor the life of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus.  St. Thérèse was born January 2, 1873 in Alençon, France to pious parents Louis and Zélie.

On Christmas Day 1886 St. Thérèse had a profound experience of intimate union with God, which she described as a “complete conversion.”  During a pilgrimage to Rome, in 1887, she obtained permission from Pope Leo XIII to enter the Carmelite Monastery at the young age of 15. On entering, she devoted herself to living a life of holiness, doing all things with love and childlike trust in God.

Thérèse offered herself as a sacrificial victim to the merciful Love of God on June 9, 1895. Saint Thérèse was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II in 1997 - 100 years after her death at the age of 24. She is only the third woman to be so proclaimed, after Saint Catherine of Siena and Saint Teresa of Avila.

St. Thérèse wrote once, 'You know well enough that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them."

Food for “displaced hungry children”

In order to meet the needs of the people in need, in Somalia, Caritas Somalia organized this project. The project was carried out by a local NGO between July and August. The aim was to intervene in those displaced camps in Mogadishu which were/are not helped by other organizations. Through this project we helped families from different ethnic groups, who live in displaced camps, with essential and basic food items distributed in packages. These groups were mainly consisting of women with children, old and sick people (affected by tuberculosis, malaria and typhoid) who have been hosted in the camps after leaving their places of origin. As already done in the past, community leaders and camp supervisors were involved in the identification of the beneficiaries of the project. The total number of beneficiaries was 1,800. Parts of the funds came from the Church in Spain (OPM).

Saint Vincent de Paul

September 27, 2014 

Saint Vincent de Paul (1581 – 1660)

Patron Saint of Charities

On Sept. 27 the Catholic Church remembers Saint Vincent de Paul, the French, 17th century priest known as the patron of Catholic charities for his apostolic work among the poor and marginalized.                           

Although Vincent had initially begun his priesthood with the intention of securing a life of leisure for himself, he underwent a change of heart after hearing the confession of a dying peasant. Moved with compassion for the poor, he began undertaking missions and founding institutions to help them both materially and spiritually. Pope Leo XIII made him the patron of all charitable societies.

During a September 2010 Angelus address, Pope Benedict XVI noted that St. Vincent “keenly perceived the strong contrast between the richest and the poorest of people,” and was “encouraged by the love of Christ” to “organize permanent forms of service” to provide for those in need.

The Church is for all God's children, rich and poor, peasants and scholars, the sophisticated and the simple. But obviously the greatest concern of the Church must be for those who need the most help—those made helpless by sickness, poverty, ignorance or cruelty.