Our Lady of the Smile, Veronese Statuary

 9" Our Lady of Smiles-Veronese in detailed color. The name "of the smile" does not correspond to a special title of Mary but an impression which Saint Therese of the Child Jesus had of Mary's (the statue of Mary in the home of the Martins) facial expressions when she was miraculously healed in 1883. Therese discovered on Mary's face, beauty, bounty and infinite tenderness, but above all, a charming and enchanting smile. This smile becomes a summary, so to speak, of Therese's Marian spirituality. At the end of her last Marian poem (see the last two verses), she discovers in Mary the one who lovingly smiles at her in the morning of her existence, and again at the moment of its sunset.

Prayer to the Our Lady of the Smile
composed by Mother Adela, sctjm

Gentle Mother, smile in our hearts and heal us!  Your maternal smile heals because it is a reflection of your motherly and immaculate love. Smile with the tender force of your maternal love and heal our hearts to know love, to receive love, to experience the fullness of love, to live in the path of love and to communicate freely the love we receive.

Smile into the depth of our hearts and bring healing to our wounds!  Smile into our hearts and heal the brokenness in our humanity. Smile and make us whole, with perfect communion of mind, heart, body and soul.

Smile, Mother, and heal us with your love!  Smile toward us and cast out all our fears and anxieties. Smile, Mother, and heal us from all that imprisons love in our hearts.  Smile to our minds and heal the memories that hurt the vision of love. Smile to our hearts and heal the experiences that have hardened us and have made us run away from love. Smile to us with your maternal love; and knowing that we are loved, heal us from the fears and hurts that impede us from generously and freely loving.  Smile, O, Mother, and with the radiance of your maternal countenance, heal our bodies from the lack of transparency in communicating the language of love.  Smile, Immaculate Mother, to our souls and heal us from all that is wounded in our communion of love with the Blessed Trinity. 

Smile, Mother, smile with your love in the deepest recesses of our hearts and heal us; so that, thus restored and freed, we may know the depth, the height, the width and the length of God’s love; so that we may live in perfect bonds of love with other hearts and so that we may ardently witness to love in the Heart of the Church.

Smile, Blessed Mother… Smile at us, smile for us.  One smile from your Maternal Heart will heal our hearts.

Our Lady of the Smile, pray for us.
St. Therese of Lisieux, pray for us.

On May

Prayer to the Our Lady of the Smile
composed by Mother Adela, sctjm

Gentle Mother, smile in our hearts and heal us!  Your maternal smile heals because it is a reflection of your motherly and immaculate love. Smile with the tender force of your maternal love and heal our hearts to know love, to receive love, to experience the fullness of love, to live in the path of love and to communicate freely the love we receive.

Smile into the depth of our hearts and bring healing to our wounds!  Smile into our hearts and heal the brokenness in our humanity. Smile and make us whole, with perfect communion of mind, heart, body and soul.

Smile, Mother, and heal us with your love!  Smile toward us and cast out all our fears and anxieties. Smile, Mother, and heal us from all that imprisons love in our hearts.  Smile to our minds and heal the memories that hurt the vision of love. Smile to our hearts and heal the experiences that have hardened us and have made us run away from love. Smile to us with your maternal love; and knowing that we are loved, heal us from the fears and hurts that impede us from generously and freely loving.  Smile, O, Mother, and with the radiance of your maternal countenance, heal our bodies from the lack of transparency in communicating the language of love.  Smile, Immaculate Mother, to our souls and heal us from all that is wounded in our communion of love with the Blessed Trinity. 

Smile, Mother, smile with your love in the deepest recesses of our hearts and heal us; so that, thus restored and freed, we may know the depth, the height, the width and the length of God’s love; so that we may live in perfect bonds of love with other hearts and so that we may ardently witness to love in the Heart of the Church.

Smile, Blessed Mother… Smile at us, smile for us.  One smile from your Maternal Heart will heal our hearts.

Our Lady of the Smile, pray for us.
St. Therese of Lisieux, pray for us.

13, 1883, Our Lady of the Smile healed St. Therese of the Child Jesus when she was bedridden.  On that day, St. Therese turned her head to a statue of the Virgin near her bed and prayed for a cure. “Suddenly,” Therese writes, “Mary's face radiated kindness and love.” Therese was healed. The statue has since been called “Our Lady of the Smile.”

St. Therese, the heart that exclaimed a few months before her death, “In the heart of my Mother, the Church, I will be love,” did not always know she could love…did not always feel free to love… But Our Lady smiled at her and she was deeply healed of all her spiritual, psychological, emotional and corporal sufferings.  She was healed by a smile…a simple and powerful “smile” of Our Mother…

The Mother’s Smile is a reflection of Her maternal and immaculate love. She smiles to the depth of our hearts, to the depths of our wounds…to our most hidden inner lackings and sufferings. She smiles and we know Her love for us!  She smiles and everything becomes so peaceful, so calm in the ocean of our hearts… She smiles and love flourishes in our whole being… She smiles and the voids of our lives are suddenly filled… She smiles and the brokenness in our humanity is restored, is elevated, is healed…  She smiles and the path of grace to our hearts opens up with a new freedom…

She smiles and we know we are loved, deeply loved, by a mother’s love! She smiles and our fears are driven away.  She smiles and the doubts are enlightened with Her kindness… She smiles and the lackings and excesses in our lives are leveled to the perfect measurement of love…  She smiles and our hearts know that there is so much more…so much more… There is tenderness, there is courage, there is freedom, there is fruitfulness, there is communion, there is life, there is love…and love makes us stronger, freer, younger and more joyful.  She smiles and we are healed…healed in the depth of our hearts!

May She smile in our hearts... May She smile to us and for us!