THE LITTLE FLOWER.

New Zealand Tablet, 24 July 1919, Page 45

THE LITTLE FLOWER.

The Most Rev. Father Godefroy Madeleine, Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Frigolet, * exiled to Belgium, has given remarkable testimony of a case of the visible protection by the Little Flower, Soeur Therese, during the war. Throughout the waxthere have been few episodes more moving than the conflict on the Meuse and the sack of the charming little town of Dinant, which is to-day a heap of ruins. The Abbey of Leffe had a large share in the general disaster*' which ovex’took Dinant, being in the centre of the line of fire. At 6 a.nx. one morning in 1914 the Saxon Army invaded the Abbey and interned there 2000 of the population, men and women. At 9 a.nx. an officer ordered all the men out, and from 50 to 60 victims were shot in the courtyard. At 10 a.m. the same officer demanded 15,000 francs fx'onx us, promises that if that sum was not forthcoming by midday the Abbey would be burned to the ground. The community descended to the cellar's and there prayed to the Sacred Heart, the Immaculate Virgin, and the Little Flower. In the afternoon, the soldiers threatened to execute all without pity, and the following morning, after a rough search thx’oixghout the monastery, the religious, with their Abbot, were led away into captivity. It was here that the intervention of the Little Flower comes in. The Fathers had placed the sacred vestments, linen, ornaments, and their few valuables in a box which they had hidden in the cellars of the Abbey, placing within it a relic of the Soeur Therese: In the course , of their> search the Germans struck this box, which was not locked, with their guns, and it also remained for several days abandoned to the discretion of the crowd who filled the Monastery. Yet, on the return of some of the Fathers, six weeks later, it was found with all its contents intact. Again and again during these days the Fathers were in danger of death, but their peril always ended in an inexplicable way, and they ascribe their final liberation to her intercession. They were 34 prisoners shut up in a Carmelite Convent. The Director of the Christian Brothers’ School, who was a companion in misfortune with six of his confreres, had the idea of making a novona to Soeur Therese for their deliverance. On the last day of the novena, a German general arrived, not only to announce the deliverance of all, but to apologise to the Fathers for their treatment and to declare

their innocence of the charges made against them; Their first act "was to go to the chapel and sing the “Te Deum” and N “Magnificat,” while they made a solemn promise that directly circumstances permitted they would publish what they owed to the servant of God, of Lisieux.-