Our Family’s Little St. Therese of Lisieux Miracle

Lesle Knop, the Executive Director for the Office of Stewardship and Development for the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, has the following guest post for EVANGELIZED KANSAS:


A routine trip to the dentist when you’re 66 years old doesn’t usually reveal any problems greater than “you’ll need a new crown.”

At my husband’s last check-up, a Wednesday in early October, the dentist delivered a shock: “Doug, you will need to have a biopsy on a lesion I see under your tongue.”

Later that day, my husband struggled to grab his slippery tongue, turning it over to show me what the dentist had discovered. Together, we looked in the mirror and under his tongue. Sure enough, we saw an almost imperceptible, less than half an inch, gray bubble.  “Ith dothn’t hurth,” he mumbled.

But that night he wouldn’t kiss me.  He gave me a dry little peck instead.  So I could tell that he was worried: “What if it’s contagious? What if it’s cancer?”

Because my husband takes blood thinners, a trip to an oral surgeon, or any surgeon, is complicated. In order to prepare for the biopsy, a consultation with the oral surgeon was scheduled for the following Wednesday and we began praying.

What happened next could merely be a coincidence.

The priest who serves as the pastor of our small rural Catholic parish, Father Ric Halvorson, also serves on the Board of Directors of the USCCB’s Pontifical Mission Society. In this capacity, he was able to secure a display of a relic of the patron saint of the mission society, St. Therese of Lisieux, on Monday and Tuesday of the following week at a parish in our archdiocese.

On Tuesday afternoon, I joined the long procession of about 2,000 pilgrims who gathered at the large parish in a nearby suburb to view a small wooden writing desk, pen and ink bottle, and a page of tiny, precise French writing – relics of the beloved saint.  A relic is something connected with a saint or a person who has been beatified. It could be a part of their body or clothing, or an object that the saint used or touched. Veneration of relics is as ancient as the disciples visiting the graves of martyrs. This activity draws us closer to God. It’s not the size of a relic that matters, but the faith and prayer that links our humble lives to a particular saint and to the communion of saints.

When I arrived at the church for the veneration, I was given a small card on which to write a prayer. My little prayer, I was told, would be added with those of others and taken back to France where the Saint’s living sisters would lift them to the Lord in their prayers. The holiness of Saint Therese is inspirational to many to live the same kind of life – a life of faith, hope and trust in God.

As I made my way slowly to the front of the line that stretched the length of the center aisle of the big church, I observed entire families kneeling in prayer. Mothers with their daughters. Fathers with their sons. Clergy. Religious. The elderly. Young workers. Students. Some of those who came, I later learned, had traveled great distances for the opportunity to view the little desk.

St. Therese's Desk

Finally at the front of the church near the altar, I was able to place my rosary and my wedding ring, on the top of the relic and place my tiny prayer petition into an over-flowing little basket.  When I murmured my prayer request that Doug be healed, I felt a great wave of emotion flood over me. With tears, I returned to a pew, fumbled for a tissue in my purse, put my wedding ring back on my finger and knelt to say prayers on the same rosary. I prayed the joyful mysteries and asked our sweet St. Therese, who suffered and died from tuberculosis at age 24, to intercede with Jesus on Doug’s behalf.

The following morning, Doug got in his truck and drove into the city for his appointment with the oral surgeon.

At 11 a.m. he called me at my office and said, “You won’t believe this. The surgeon said there is nothing wrong with me. He couldn’t find a lesion on my tongue or anywhere in my mouth.”

I have been skeptical of reports of miracles in my adult life: Surely, that potato chip was not an image of Our Lady…that crying statue, there must be a trick or some technical deception.

But today, I am writing to say that there was a lesion in my husband’s mouth, on the right underneath side of his tongue, and now it is not there. Perhaps it was only a sore; yet he had no pain. Perhaps the lesion wasn’t there at all; yet at least three people, the dentist, my husband and I, saw it.

Faith is a remarkable gift from God. We don’t create it in ourselves – but it is a gift that we can accept or refuse. I am greatly moved by this little miracle in our lives. And I am grateful.

Before she died in 1897, about the same time that my grandparents were born, St. Therese said, “I feel that I’m about to enter into my rest. But I feel especially that my mission is about to begin, my mission of making God loved as I love Him, of giving my little way to souls…Yes, I want to spend my heaven in doing good on earth.”

I am filled with joy, gratitude and love as I share this story with you. My pastor, when I told him this story, said, “Lesle, just be sure you give credit where credit is due.”

Thank you, St. Therese of Lisieux, for winding your little way into my heart, and thank you, Lord, for Doug's healing.

Read more about St. Therese's desk here.