Prayers to St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus

Offering of Myself as a Victim of Holocaust to the Merciful Love of God.

O my God, Blessed Trinity, I desire to love You and to make You loved, to labor for the glorification of Holy Church by saving souls on earth and delivering those who suffer in purgatory. I desire to accomplish Your will perfectly and to reach the degree of glory You have prepared for me in Your kingdom—in a word, I want to be a saint. But I feel my own powerlessness, and I ask You, O God, to be my sanctity Yourself.

Since You have loved me so much as to give me Your only Son as my Savior and Spouse, the infinite treasures of His merits are mine; I offer them to You with joy, begging You to look upon me only through the Face of Jesus and in His Heart burning with Love.

I offer You all the merits of the saints (those 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 that I entrust my offering, begging her to present it to You.

Your divine Son, my beloved Spouse, said to us when He was on earth: "Whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give you!" I am therefore certain that You will grant my prayer.

I know, O my God, the more You wish to give, the more You make us desire. I feel immense desires in my heart, and it is with confidence that 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 Almighty? Remain in me, as in a tabernacle, and never separate Yourself from Your little victim...

I would like to console You for the ingratitude of the wicked, and I beg You to take away my freedom to displease You; if through weakness I should sometimes fall, may Your divine gaze purify my soul immediately, consuming all its imperfections, as fire transforms all things into itself...

My God, I thank You for all the graces You have granted me, especially for having made me pass through the crucible of suffering. With joy I shall contemplate You on the last day, bearing the scepter of the Cross; since You have deigned to make me share in this so precious Cross, I hope to be like You in heaven and to see the sacred stigmata of Your Passion shining on my glorified body...

After earthly exile, I hope to enjoy You in Your kingdom; but I do not wish to heap up merits for heaven. I wish to work only for Your Love, with the sole desire of pleasing You, of consoling Your Sacred Heart, and of saving souls who will love You eternally.

In the evening of this life, I shall appear before You, O Lord, with empty hands, for I do not ask You to count my works. All our justice is stained in Your eyes. I wish therefore to clothe myself with Your own Justice and to receive from Your Love the eternal possession of Yourself. I want no other Throne, no other Crown than You, O my Beloved!

Before Your eyes, time is nothing; a single day is as a thousand years. You can, therefore, in one instant, prepare me to appear before You.

To live in a single Act of Perfect Love, I OFFER MYSELF AS A VICTIM OF HOLOCAUST TO YOUR MERCIFUL LOVE, begging You to consume me without ceasing, letting the waves of infinite tenderness that are contained in You overflow into my soul, so that I may become a Martyr of Your Love, O my God!

May this martyrdom, after preparing me to appear before You, cause me to die at last, and may my soul then take flight without delay into the eternal embrace of Your Merciful Love.

O my Beloved, at each beat of my heart I will renew this offering to You, countless times, until the shadows fade away and I can return Your Love in an Eternal Face to Face....

O adorable Face of Jesus! Since You have deigned especially to choose our souls to give Yourself to them, we come to consecrate them to You.

O Jesus, we seem to hear You say: "Open to me, my sisters, my beloved spouses, for my Face is covered with dew, and my hair with the drops of the night."

Our souls understand Your language of love; we wish to seek Your sweet Face and to console You for the forgetfulness of sinners. In their eyes, You are still as if hidden... They look upon You as an object of scorn!

O Face more beautiful than the lilies and roses of spring! You are not hidden from our eyes! The tears that bathe Your divine gaze seem to us precious diamonds, which we wish to gather, in order to buy, with their infinite value, the souls of our brothers.

We have heard the loving complaint of Your adorable Mouth. Understanding that the thirst that burns You is a thirst for Love, we would wish to possess an infinite Love with which to quench Your thirst.

Beloved Spouse of our souls! If we could have the love of every heart, all this love would be for You... Very well! Give us this love, come and drink from Your little spouses...

Lord, we need the souls of apostles and martyrs, so that through them we may set ablaze with Your love the multitude of poor sinners.

O adorable Face, we wish to obtain this grace from You! Forgetting our exile on the banks of the rivers of Babylon, we will sing in Your ears the sweetest melodies. Since You are the true, the only Homeland of our souls, our songs will not be sung in a foreign land.

O dear Face of Jesus! While awaiting the eternal day when we shall contemplate Your infinite glory, our only desire is to rejoice Your divine Eyes, hiding even our own faces so that no one may recognize us here below... Your veiled Face is our Heaven, O Jesus!...

O little St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, who in your short life were an example of angelic purity, of great love, and of generous abandonment to God, now that you enjoy the reward of your virtues, cast a glance of compassion upon me who trust in you.

Take my desires as your own and speak a word for me to the Immaculate Virgin, whose beloved daughter you were, to the Queen of Heaven who smiled upon you on the morning of your life; tell her that as Mother of God and of mankind she may obtain for me through her powerful intercession the grace I so much desire, and accompany it with a blessing that may strengthen me during life, assist me at the hour of death, and lead me to blessed eternity. Amen.