ST. THERESE OF THE CHILD JESUS. (DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH)
When we look for one word to sum up Therese of Lisieux, the word LOVE comes to mind. Love was her spirituality, love was her life. She spent most of her time plumbing its meaning, savoring its beauty and searching out its implications. Eventually she saw love as her total vocation, the gifted way to fulfill all her desires, to be everything and to do everything for God, in the Body of Christ. She would be the heart of that body; she would be love. In this way she would be associated with every activity of Christ's body, since the heart animates every organ and participates in every action.
Therese dealt in absolutes. Everything and nothing, God and Therese, Merciful Love and her littleness; these are the two poles of her spirituality. The force that got her going between her poverty and God's love, was confidence, casting herself into the arms of God. The formula came to be described as her LITTLE WAY. Her discovery came out of a life time of experience. She lived the ' Little Way ' before she put it into words.
Therese learnt well the lesson of St. John of the Cross about emptiness and fullness. She would go to God with 'empty hands', with nothing of herself and everything from her Spouse Jesus. 'Merit does not consist in doing or in giving much, but rather in receiving, in loving much.' 'Jesus does not ask for great actions, but only abandonment and gratitude. The reason is simple: pleasing God is God's work in us, and this work thrives in poverty and littleness.' Therese wrote to her sister Marie: ' Let us love our littleness, let us love to feel nothing, then we shall be poor in spirit, then Jesus will come to look for us...and transform us into flames of love.'
Therese knew she was not a great soul. She was too little for anything but ' little actions and desires'. Little nothings, the strewing of flowers cast at the Lord's feet to soften His passage, were her way of showing her immense love. This had been her practice since childhood. Were these little acts sufficient? Was the Good God content with these fervent acts and aspirations as He was with the heroic accomplishments of the Saints?... All God asks is that we live in the truth, recognizing our indebtedness and God's loving kindness; the rest is simply acting out this new life as God leads.
Therese learnt that great love can be delivered in small packages. Her vocation was precisely love, to be the heart of the Mystical Body, a vocation that was lived out precisely in the humble, unpretentious, matter of fact doing God's Will, moment to moment in her daily life. This was the work of God, the law of God's love discovered by Therese.
St Therese writes, "Yes my Beloved this is how my life will be consumed. I have no other means of proving my love for you other than that of strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one word, profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love. I desire to suffer for love and even to rejoice through love; and in this way I shall strew flowers before your throne. I shall not come upon one without unpetalling it for you. Her poem "Strewing Flowers" identifies the flowers as "my slightest sighs, my greatest sufferings, my sorrows and my joys, my little sacrifices." A later poem describes how the petals are to be tossed with abandon, "blown away" in the total gift of self.
She wrote to Celine that "Jesus was teaching her to do all through love, to refuse Him nothing, to be content when he gives me a chance of proving to Him that I love Him. But this is done in peace and abandonment, it is Jesus Who is doing all in me and I am doing nothing". Her life was simply response to the moment to moment Presence of God.
Therese learnt well the lesson of St. John of the Cross about emptiness and fullness. She would go to God with 'empty hands', with nothing of herself and everything from her Spouse Jesus. 'Merit does not consist in doing or in giving much, but rather in receiving, in loving much.' 'Jesus does not ask for great actions, but only abandonment and gratitude. The reason is simple: pleasing God is God's work in us, and this work thrives in poverty and littleness.' Therese wrote to her sister Marie: ' Let us love our littleness, let us love to feel nothing, then we shall be poor in spirit, then Jesus will come to look for us...and transform us into flames of love.'
Therese knew she was not a great soul. She was too little for anything but ' little actions and desires'. Little nothings, the strewing of flowers cast at the Lord's feet to soften His passage, were her way of showing her immense love. This had been her practice since childhood. Were these little acts sufficient? Was the Good God content with these fervent acts and aspirations as He was with the heroic accomplishments of the Saints?... All God asks is that we live in the truth, recognizing our indebtedness and God's loving kindness; the rest is simply acting out this new life as God leads.
Therese learnt that great love can be delivered in small packages. Her vocation was precisely love, to be the heart of the Mystical Body, a vocation that was lived out precisely in the humble, unpretentious, matter of fact doing God's Will, moment to moment in her daily life. This was the work of God, the law of God's love discovered by Therese.
St Therese writes, "Yes my Beloved this is how my life will be consumed. I have no other means of proving my love for you other than that of strewing flowers, that is, not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one word, profiting by all the smallest things and doing them through love. I desire to suffer for love and even to rejoice through love; and in this way I shall strew flowers before your throne. I shall not come upon one without unpetalling it for you. Her poem "Strewing Flowers" identifies the flowers as "my slightest sighs, my greatest sufferings, my sorrows and my joys, my little sacrifices." A later poem describes how the petals are to be tossed with abandon, "blown away" in the total gift of self.
She wrote to Celine that "Jesus was teaching her to do all through love, to refuse Him nothing, to be content when he gives me a chance of proving to Him that I love Him. But this is done in peace and abandonment, it is Jesus Who is doing all in me and I am doing nothing". Her life was simply response to the moment to moment Presence of God.
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