Three Years in Beverly Hills, Singing Tenor Every Sunday

For three years, Beverly Hills has been Anthony Perlas’s community. He volunteers as a tenor in a church choir here: every rehearsal, every Mass. The nightlife is part of his life too, and so are ping pong and singing. The thread running through all of it is a 19th-century French saint and her idea that small things, done with great love, are enough.

Who was the Little Flower?

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897) was a French Carmelite nun. Her memoir, Story of a Soul, became a worldwide classic. She was canonized in 1925 and named a Doctor of the Church in 1997. People call her “the Little Flower,” and her spirituality “the Little Way”: no act is too small to count if it is done with love.

Small acts: almsgiving

In Story of a Soul she writes that on her daily walks in Lisieux, as in Alençon, she “often used to give alms to the beggars.” One day an old man on crutches refused her penny. At six years old she resolved to pray for him on her First Communion day, and five years later she kept that promise.

1887: a prayer for a condemned man

At 14, Thérèse heard about Henri Pranzini, sentenced in Paris on July 13, 1887 for the murder of two women and a child. Everyone expected him to die unrepentant. She prayed for him, offered “the infinite merits of Our Lord,” and asked her sister Céline to have a Mass said for him.

Pranzini went to the guillotine on August 31, 1887, without going to confession. But at the last moment, she writes, he turned, took the crucifix the priest held out, and kissed it three times. She read it the next day in the newspaper La Croix and called him “my first child.”

Praying for sinners and missionaries

Thérèse never left her convent, yet she became the “spiritual sister” of two missionary priests, Fr. Maurice Bellière and Fr. Adolphe Roulland, and supported them with prayer, sacrifice and letters. On December 14, 1927, Pope Pius XI named her patroness of the missions.

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In her own words

On prayer, in a line the Catechism quotes (§2558): “For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”

And from her 1895 poem “Living on Love”: “Living on Love is giving without limit / Without claiming any wages here below.”

What Anthony believes, and an open door

Anthony is Catholic and holds what the Church teaches, including the line in Catechism §846, “Outside the Church there is no salvation,” which he shares as an invitation. The Athanasian Creed puts it this way: “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith.”

The headlines are heavy. On October 25, 2026, Fox News Digital reported that “the Pentagon is preparing U.S. military bases to keep operating for at least 90 days without outside support.” His answer: fear never saved anyone; love does.

So the invitation is simple. If you’d like to be baptized or become Catholic, DM him on Instagram. He’ll walk with you and help you take the first step with a parish; adults usually begin through OCIA, the parish program for new Catholics. No judgment, no pressure.

And then, in his words: “I said the word. I’m at peace. Let’s party under the night stars and enjoy your time on Earth.”

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Sources: Story of a Soul (ch. 2; Manuscript A 45v–46v, ICS ed. pp. 99–101); Carmel of Lisieux archives (Pranzini entry; patronage of the missions); Catechism of the Catholic Church §846 and §2558 (vatican.va); “Living on Love!” (PN 17, Feb. 26, 1895), Carmel of Lisieux archives; Athanasian Creed (Quicumque vult); Pope Francis, General Audience, June 7, 2023; Fox News Digital, “Inside the Pentagon’s doomsday plan to keep America fighting if global war erupts,” Oct. 25, 2026.