On December 25th, I will certainly send my angel to place my intentions for the guest you will transform. From the depths of my heart, I thank you for serving the morning Mass for our mother and for me. When you are at the altar, we will sing the Christmas matins... Brother, you were not wrong when you said that my intention will undoubtedly be to "thank Jesus for the greatest day of grace." Christmas night 1886 was decisive for my vocation – I must call it "the night of my conversion." On that blessed night, of which it is written that it illuminates the joys of God Himself, Jesus, who became a child out of love for me, freed me from the swaddling clothes and childhood imperfections. He transformed me so much that I no longer recognized myself.
(Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, letter 201, to Father Roulland, November 1, 1896)
