National Catholic Register on St. Thérèse and Her Christmas Conversion

The December 16-22, 2007 issue of the National Catholic Register has a couple of articles on St. Thérèse and her Christmas Conversion.

The first is a piece titled "The Christmas Conversion of St. Thérèse" by Fr. Dwight Longenecker:

... One of the convincing stories about Thérèse’s life was her childhood “conversion” (as she calls it) at the age of 14. As an evangelical, I was brought up with the idea of the importance of personal conversion, and I myself first “accepted Jesus into my heart” at the age of 5. Thérèse’s childhood conversion was therefore fascinating, and I wanted to know more.

It happened at Christmastime in 1886...

The second piece appears in the Travel section of the publication - "Keeper of the ‘Christmas Conversion’" by Kimberly Jansen:

The Church celebrates the feast of St. Thérèse of Lisieux in October, but two months later many hold her memory close again because of a life-changing conversion experience she underwent interiorly on Christmas Day of 1886. An Advent visit to St. Teresa’s Church in Lincoln, Neb.

Fr. Longenecker recently sent me a copy of his book, St. Benedict and St. Thérèse - The Little Rule and The Little Way, for me to review. After today, I am off from work for the rest of the year (and probably won't be blogging much, either). I promise to use that time to finally get around to reading Fr. Longenecker's book and writing a review.

On that same subject, Fr. Longenecker will be leading a St. Benedict and St. Thérèse pilgrimage/retreat in France from March 24 through April 2, 2008. This looks like a real treat, so you should check it out if you're interested.