Dear Adrienne,

Do you remember St. Thérèse from the 1998 Winter Olympics?

No, the saint didn't skate. But that was when we watched Tara Lapinski winning a gold medal and thanking the Little Flower for it.

Now, four years later, the skater still credits the saint. And she attributes another thing to her: help in “dealing with doubt.” She learned from Thérèse that “Faith is what you turn to and what gets you through no matter what.”

Tara Lapinski taught her St. Thérèse devotion to another skater, Matthew Goebel. Now he, too, has an Olympic skating medal.

And he also learned Thérèse's greater lesson.

“In the grand scheme of things,” he said, “what's more important — winning an Olympic medal or being a good person?”

To him, being a good person means being a good Catholic. “If you lose one part, then it all falls apart,” Goebel said. His advice: Don't be a “cafeteria Catholic.” His practice: Mass daily when possible, confession weekly when possible.

I understand, my dear daughter, that you also have some affection for St. Thérèse. Being a convert to the Catholic faith, she is one of those people I never learned about as a child. You are lucky to be growing up within the faith, attending a school where you learn about such wonderful people as St. Thérèse.

The Little Flower, as she was known, tried to do everything according to her little way. By our terms, she seems modest in her ambitions, to put it mildly.

It seems we're always looking for whoever is the most outlandish, the most stylish, the most willing to be wild and push back the border between decency and indecency.

St. Thérèse was really something special, Adrienne.

She knew she wanted to be a contemplative from an early age, devoted her life to prayer (including the suffering caused by her poor health) and wrote things that anyone would find, well, simple. She died when just 24 years old, leaving behind nothing of material value — just a record of fervent prayer and spiritual writings.

She was so obscure and apparently unproductive that, as her health failed and the sisters in her convent readied themselves for her death, one is reported to have said: “I really wonder sometimes what our Mother Prioress will find to say about Sister Thérèse when she dies ... she has certainly never done anything worth speaking of.”

St. Thérèse, being the paragon of humility, would have taken great comfort in such a statement. For she sought neither fame nor fortune, just the opportunity to pray and dedicate her suffering to Christ.

When she died just over a century ago, there were no parades or television specials. There was little notice.

Yes, Adrienne, the power of her faith, prayers and simple writing survived and carried her to sainthood and the eventual adoration by the Catholic faithful all over the world. She clearly remembered the good advice I so often forget that God doesn't call us to be rich, famous or successful — just to be faithful.

Ironically, of course, St. Thérèse sought nothing but obscurity and most certainly today enjoys all the spiritual riches of heaven, meeting Christ face-to-face.

When Tara Lapinski won, you'll recall, the ice was littered with roses. Maybe that was St. Thérèse smiling down.

But I like what I read about Tim Goebel. Someone said, “you can tell Tim is Catholic by the way he treats people in the Olympic Village.”

May St. Thérèse smile down on you so that people will say that — quietly, privately — of you. All my love, Dad.

Jim Fair writes from Chicago.