Answered prayers
Codd, Kevin
THE LAST WORD ANSWERED PRAYERS Kevin Codd On going to Lisieux recently, I fulfilled a desire (long and vaguely felt) to visit the home of a saint sacred to my family. In April 1955, my mother...
...I have chosen to believe that the Little Flower continues to use her heaven to do good on earth, and that she took very good care of my family in 1955...
...There was no angelic smile on her quite ordinary face...
...I also know that natural coincidences like this are the stuff out of which our eyes are allowed to see more than they usually do...
...But there it was...
...In April 1955, my mother began to hemorrhage while giving birth...
...She continues in her old age to be the serene center of our lives...
...I believe in God and in prayer...
...The Red Sea, the burning bush, even the bread and wine of the Last Supper are eminently natural things, yet somehow they become infused with realities and meanings that carry us beyond ourselves...
...And, I am happy to admit, I have chosen to believe that Therese of Lisieux looked at me, and let me know that she continues to pray for my improvement...
...A break in the clouds outside was producing this singular beam that poured down on me...
...Another slow breath or two passed...
...And I wanted to ask her to pray for me, an imperfect priest...
...But I don't expect visions and miracle to support that faith...
...I do not consider myself a candidate for shafts of light...
...I wanted to thank her...
...This was a revelation: a photograph of a saint...
...I looked right and upward, following the shaft of light that was striking my face...
...After a couple of breaths in the quiet of that dark place, I felt gratitude for my mother and for the great blessing she has been to her eleven children...
...I wandered from back to front, snapped pictures of especially beautiful mosaics, then found my way to the transept where, above a large altar surrounded by vigil lights, a reliquary holds the saint's bones...
...She seemed so much like the rest of us and so different from the holy cards...
...I know perfectly well that the beam was caused by the most ordinary climatic conditions on a gray day in Normandy...
...On her pilgrimage to see the pope before entering the convent, she had come across a number of mediocre clerics and thereafter dedicated herself to praying for their improvement...
...It lasted for a minute at most: enough time to look away, then look back to make sure it was real...
...Gradually the shards that made up Therese's face darkened...
...I even had enough time to pretend it wasn't happening...
...French existentialists sometimes write about le regard...
...As a young boy, roaming secretly in my parents' bedroom, I came upon a framed black-and-white photograph of a young woman dressed in a rumpled habit that looked terribly heavy...
...I felt regarded by Therese...
...What struck me immediately was that the light was emanating from her face alone...
...She stood in a garden...
...Her features were brilliant...
...I found a seat at some distance from the altar and closed my eyes...
...The moment was gone...
...Kevin Codd, a priest of the Diocese of Spokane, Washington, is currently rector of the American College in Louvain, Belgium.uvain, Belgium...
...He was named after Therese's father, Louis Martin...
...In this coincidence, I sensed that there had just been a gracious break in the clouds separating me from Therese...
...So I had two reasons for lighting a vigil candle and placing it before her remains...
...Saint Therese of Lisieux was a Carmelite and Carmelites take seriously her promise, "I will use my heaven doing good on earth...
...I believe Jesus died and rose from the dead, and that the bread and wine we bless in memory of the Lord is the Lord...
...The face I saw in my parents' bedroom was the same face that saw me in the basilica...
...Perhaps to my detriment, I am not a person who sees supernatural wonders at every turn...
...It was no leap of faith or naive piety that made the moment of illumination extraordinary for me...
...When I entered the Lisieux basilica, I felt (as one often does in churches built on a grand scale) small and fragile...
...Then, behind my closed eyes, I became aware of a change of light...
...I've been thinking about this for a while and have made a choice...
...To be even half as good as she is would be a prayer that even Therese might have a hard time making come true...
...Therese had a special devotion to praying for priests...
...My mother and brother survived...
...A rather sizable plaster statue of Therese held a prominent place in our living room, and her holy-card image was tucked into our Sunday missals...
...It led to a stained-glass image of Therese at the cross of Jesus located just above her relics...
...The small letters below the photo identified her as Therese...
...A Jesuit uncle, then chaplain to the Seattle community of Carmelite nuns, made an emergency appeal for prayers...
Vol. 129 • October 2002 • No. 18
