St. Therese senior living communities in the Twin Cities have been honoring their namesake this month, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, including Mass on her feast day Oct. 1 at sites in New Hope, Oxbow Lake and Woodbury.
Those facilities and senior living sites in Brooklyn Park and Shoreview are recognizing the 150th anniversary of St. Thérèse’s birth and the 100th anniversary of her canonization. Special gifts, food and information are being shared through October with residents, staff, volunteers and supporters.
A novena was prayed leading up to the saint’s feast day. And transportation will be provided to St. Therese residents to events surrounding veneration of the saint’s relics and those of her parents, Sts. Zélie and Louis Martin, Oct. 6-7 at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul and Oct. 7-10 at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. Dates and times for trips can be found at each senior living site.
In New Hope, site of the first St. Therese facility, the feast day Mass included two Benedictine sisters from St. Paul’s Monastery in St. Paul speaking about the early days of the senior living organization. Sister Paula Hagen, who was in occupational therapy, and Sister Virginia Matter, a nurse, helped get the New Hope campus ready for residents in 1968, and they lived and worked in the building.
In addition, four of the seven daughters of St. Therese Senior Communities founder Jerry Choromanski were at the Mass. Jerry was a devout Catholic and St. Thérèse was his family’s patron saint. He named the organization after her and inspired by her words he helped instill the organization’s mission to “do ordinary things with extraordinary love.”
