A sign to the Pope from St. Therese?
September 27, 2013
An Italian archbishop has disclosed that Pope Francis—who has a deep devotion to St. Therese of Lisieux—received a single white rose on the day after the Vatican prayer vigil for peace in Syria.
Archbishop Edoardo Menichelli of Osimo disclosed that on Sunday, September 8, as the Pope took a walk in the Vatican gardens, a worker presented him with a white rose. The Pope mentioned the incident to the Italian archbishop, who—with the Pontiff’s permission—made the story public during a press conference introducing a new book about St. Therese.
Andrea Tornielli of La Stampa notes that although the Pope did not make a direct connection between the rose and the prayer vigil that he organized, Pope Francis has said in the past that he habitually asks St. Therese for help with difficult problems. In an interview conducted while he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires, the future Pope said: “Whenever I have a problem, I ask the saint not to solve it, but to take it into her hands and to help me accept it, and I almost always receive a white rose as a sign.”
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