Shrine of St. Theresa and the Infant Jesus

(Shrine of the "Little Flower")

The shrine to St. Theresa of Lisieux, "The Little Flower", is located at the south side of Plassmann Hall.  It was dedicated on May 17, 1925, the day Theresa was canonized a saint.  The year before the shrine was built, a seminarian at St. Bonaventure became critically ill and all his doctors said he was going to die.  During his sickness, his classmates at St. Bonaventure petitioned God through an all night vigil before the Blessed Sacrament to honor the "Little Flower", whose help they had sought to spare the seminarian's life.  To everyone's delight he survived his illness and the shrine was built the following year to honor St. Theresa for answering their prayers. 

The original statue was replaced in 1972 after suffering major damage a couple of years before.

It was at this shrine that Thomas Merton sought counsel one evening, asking what it was he should do with his life.  It was then that he imagined he heard the Trappist bells of the Gethsemani monastery.  Soon after he left St. Bonaventure and joined the Trappists in Louisville, Kentucky. 

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Jandoli, Russell J. "To Some She Sends Little Gifts." Olean Times Herald 16 Sept. 1972: 24.
"Shrine of St. Theresa of the Infant Jesus" St. Bonaventure University.