The altar and the statue of Our Lady before which St. Therese, in the name of her companions, recited the Act of Consecration to the Blessed Virgin at the Benedictine Abbey of Notre Dame du Pre in Lisieux, May 8, 1884. Photo credit: The Far East MagazineIn the convent school St. Therese attended, the entire day of the First Communion was carefully choreographed to allow the communicants to receive the sacrament in a conscious and recollected way. The Mass was in the morning. In the afternoon, after the ceremony of Vespers, the girls consecrated themselves to the Blessed Virgin Mary for their whole lives. One child was chosen to read the Act of Consecration in the name of the others. If one of the children was an orphan, she was always given that honor so that she might turn to Mary's protection in a particular way. Therese, who had lost her mother, was selected to recite the Act on her First Communion Day, May 8, 1884. Therese wrote:
I put all my heart into speaking to her, into consecrating myself to her as a child throwing itself into the arms of its mother, asking her to watch over her.
On the Web site of the Archives of the Carmel of Lisieux, read Therese's description of making the Act of Consecration to the Blessed Virgin.
For a detailed report of the ceremony of consecration and of Therese's entire First Communion Day, read "The Little Flower's First Communion," an illustrated account written in 1934 by one of the Benedictines who taught her and published by The Far East, the magazine of the Columban missionaries, which kindly allowed me to publish it 80 years later.
The above photograph of the actual place and the statue before which Therese made this consecration is all the more precious because the Benedictine Abbey was completely destroyed when Lisieux was bombed on June 6, 1944.