Therese of Lisieux - Teacher, Evangelizer,
Mystic
by Teresa Martinez, OCDS
If we could use quotes from Scripture to
describe St. Therese of Lisieux, the
following
quote could surely be one of them:
"Blessed
are you Father, Lord of heaven and
earth,
you have revealed to little ones the
mysteries
of heaven and earth." Mt.1. 12.
When
we study and reflect on Therese's doctrine
of spiritual childhood we soon realize
that
she is teaching us much more than meets
the
eye, but before finding out what we
can learn
from her as a teacher, evangelizer
and mystic,
we will first look briefly at St. Therese
in the context of this Congress theme
"Discalced
Carmelite Saints In Love With Sacred
Scripture".
THERESE IN LOVE WITH SACRED SCRIPTURE
We know that in Therese's time the
laity
was discouraged from reading the Bible.
Carmelite
Postulants and Novices most probably
fell
into the same category. Yet, in spite
of
this, we find that in her autobiography
Therese
quoted from Scriptures, expressed her
love
of the Word of God and used it literally
as the light that guided her life which
led
her to great sanctity. She wrote that
when
all other readings failed to offer
her any
assistance, it was only with the solid
and
pure nourishment of Scriptures that
she found
satisfaction.
Keeping this in mind, raises the question
about where and how did Therese get
her knowledge
of Sacred Scriptures? We can only guess
that
she must have had at least six sources.
The
first opportunity must have been when
she
listened to her father reading to the
family
from the series of books called THE
LITURGICAL
YEAR, by Dom Geranger, which contain
some
Scripture quotes.
The second opportunity was during her
attendance
at Mass when she listened to the Epistles
and Gospels being expounded.
The third source must have come from
reading
the New Testament. The fourth might
have
been at the retreats she attended annually.
The fifth could have come from the
references
to the Word of God in the book THE
IMITATION
OF CHRIST which she knew by heart.
And sixth
source was from Celine, who we know
that
after Mr. Martin's death and before
she entered
Carmel, moved in to live with her Aunt
and
Uncle Guerin in their home. While living
with them, she copied by hand tracts
of Scripture
from her Uncle's Isidore's Bible. These
treasured
Bible tracts Celine brought with her
into
the Carmel when she entered, and of
course
shared them with Therese. The influence
and
fruit of her love of Scriptures is
made visible
in her life by her hidden purgative
contemplative
prayer in action, seen in her heroic
practice
of the evangelical counsels. Her life
is
a practical and concrete illustration
of
the doctrine of St. John of the Cross,
as
she becomes nothing to gain all.
The next question to be asked would
be: What
did all the Saints being presented
here this
week-end have in common, when they
were individuals
so diverse in character, personality,
culture,
up-bringing, gifts and gender?
The first thing held in common in all
of
their writings is through their response
to their reflection on the word of
God. Their
minds, hearts and souls became the
fertile
ground for the seed of God's word to
yield
a hundredfold. They evangelized by
the way
they lived a deep and abiding faith,
hope
and love, nourished by the word of
God. "But
as for what was sown on good soil,
this is
the one who hears the word and understands
it, who indeed bears fruit and yields,
in
one case a hundredfold, in another
sixty,
and in another thirty." Mt 13..
Another trait common to all of them,
is their
practice of heroic union with God's
will,
which turned all their actions into
sublime
expressions of love. This placed them
among
the blessed even before death and in
spite
of their faults.
This was Jesus' supreme teaching. In
Luke
18.15 we read: "Blessed are they
who
have kept the word of God with a generous
heart and yielded a harvest through
perseverance."
THERESE AS TEACHER
The late Pope John Paul II said: "The
Church needs credible witnesses more
than
teachers". JP II Zenit ZE032324
12/14/03.
Therese was an incredibly credible
witness
and therefore an excellent teacher.
Our Holy
Mother wrote a commentary on the Our
Father
to teach her daughters the way of perfection.
Therese did not set out to write a
commentary
on the Our Father, nevertheless, her
autobiography
turns out to be a living commentary
on all
that Jesus taught in the prayer the
Our Father.
During this talk, time permits only
two examples
of Therese's living commentary on the
Our
Father to be presented. The first example
relates to God as Abba.
The second relates to the words: "…may
thy will be done on earth as it is
in heaven…".
While the first obvious lesson being
taught
in these words is obedience, nevertheless,
there is a far greater and deeper implication
of what the words also mean and are
related
to.
THE FIRST COMMENTARY ON THE OUR FATHER
Therese's first commentary is on the
concept
of God as Father. She gained a full
and true
understanding of the fatherhood of
God when
she experienced what fatherhood was
from
her own devoted father. This conviction
came
from her observations, experience and
insight
into the dynamics of her own family
life.
Her particular genius as a teacher
was to
draw from the lessons she learned from
the
loving care that she received at home
when
growing up, and was able to transfer
these
observations to a spiritual level as
she
related them to God. Her observations
of
the kindness, care and help that the
grown-ups
in her family gave to her, the smallest
and
youngest in the family, made her realize
how childhood littleness, simplicity
and
dependence drew down love and evoked
compassion
and assistance from those older, wiser
and
bigger, especially from her father.
She transferred this concept of loving
Dad
to God, not only as Almighty and Omnipotent,
but most of all as loving Abba.
Through her insight that childlike
loving
trust was the sure way to relate to
God,
she was consoled, motivated and gained
a
bold confidence in her spiritual life
when
she realized that great public deeds
were
not necessary to please a Father who
already
loves us beyond measure. She understood
that
a loving father simply wants his children
to return his love, for true love never
deliberately
hurts the beloved.
Therese realized that the best way
to show
a loving God how much she loved Him,
was
through the concrete way of simple
childlike
obedience to His will in the ordinary
events
and duties of her state of life, done
in
the extraordinary way of love. In 1
Jn 4,
we read: "God is love and he who
lives
in love, lives in God, and God in him".
This simple yet profound message is
the crux
of what makes Therese a spiritual teacher
so universally loved, because we all
can
identify with the concept of the littleness,
helplessness and the poverty of childhood.
Like St. Paul, she understood how powerlessness
can draw down God's merciful help.
However, when we try imitating her,
we learn
very quickly, that the way of spiritual
childhood
is a martyrdom to everything that the
ego
holds sacred, a total renunciation
of self.
A second short perspective of Therese
as
teacher was downloaded from the internet.
It comes from a talk given by Bishop
Ahern
upon the conferral of the title doctor
ecclesiae
to St. Therese. Bishop Ahern found
that Therese's
writings related in many ways to Vatican
II teachings.
Bishop Ahern addressed various groups,
including
Centenary Symposia of several Carmelite
Centres.
He said:
"… serious scholars 'point to
the similarity
between many Conciliar teachings and
those
of Therese'. He examined how positively
she
would relate to Vatican Council II
teachings
on ecumenism, the Bible, Mary and the
universal
call to holiness…Most do not know that
she
has given us more prose than John of
the
Cross and three time more poetry".
Therese did not write her autobiography
with
the intention to teach, yet her writing
becomes
a great teaching because it is a testimony
of how deep faith leads to holiness
and ultimately
to mission. "Holiness and mission
are
inseparable aspects of the vocation
of every
baptized person." Pope John Paul
II
On World Mission Sunday on Feb.21,
2003 ZENITH
Code: ZE0322109
This concludes the brief observations
of
Therese as teacher.
THERESE AS EVANGELIZER
We Discalced Carmelite Secular Order
members,
are called to the same holiness and
mission
as are our Friars and Sisters in the
Order
- first by our baptism into the Catholic
Church, second by Vatican II teachings,
and
third by our vocation in and Profession
of
Promises to the Teresian Carmel.
Cardinal Ambrozic gave some very clear
and
insightful guide-lines to the lay faithful
on how and what we should do to prepare
ourselves
to undertake our important mission
of evangelizing.
The Cardinal said: "…their rightful
position of importance can be attained
by
means of profound Christian self-awareness,
spiritual depth, Christ-like concern
for
this world and evangelization of individuals
and cultures…" And when referring
to
the importance of the lay faithful
for the
future of the Church, he went on to
say:
"They are vastly significant for
our
present and future.." The Importance
of Lay Movements. Talk given at the
Cardinal's
Dinner October 28, 2004, by Aloysius,
Cardinal
Ambrozic.
This statement jolts us out of a sanitized
Christianity and a comatose attitude
towards
apostolate. The practice of our Christian
faith and vocation in Carmel is not
only
for our own sanctification, but for
the sanctification
of all those we come in contact with.
How
is this done?
Our vocation in the Discalced Carmelite
Secular
Order assists our personal sanctification,
by giving us:
Human Formation to "develop the
capacity
for introspection, interpersonal dialogue,
mutual respect, tolerance and have
the ability
to collaborate with others in forming
community…"
Christian Formation to " receive
the
necessary theological base by means
of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church and
the
documents of the Church,
Carmelite Formation - confirm Carmelite
identity
through formation in the Scriptures,
Lectio
Divina, and the spiritual doctrine
of Carmel,
- placing the importance of the Liturgy
of
the Church, especially in the Eucharist
and
the Liturgy of the Hours. - Engage
in silent
prayer daily." A.Deeney,ocd, Report
from the General Delegate for the OCDS
at
the OCD Extraordinary Definitory, held
in
Santiago, Chile, Oct. 6 - 12, 2005
It is in community that we learn that
religion
and life cannot be separated, and are
taught
how to integrate them into daily life.
THERESE THE MYSTIC
We will now move on to the meat of
this talk,
looking specifically for what it was,
by
the way in which she lived her life
and vocation,
that points out and teaches a new concept
of mystical prayer within the grasp
of all,
that has gone unnoticed and undetected
simply
because it is not associated with historical
and traditional mysticism.
When studying Therese's writings to
prepare
to give a talk at our Congress in 1996,
a
different side of Therese was discovered.
My observations and the discovery of
this
aspect of Therese that will be shared
and
presented to you now are purely personal
thoughts on a discovery that was made
then.
This is not the teaching of the Church
nor
of the Order. Some may consider it
a preposterous
or presumptuous proposal. But as we
all know,
"Fools barge in where angels fear
to
tread.". Here is the discovery.
When reflecting on The Story of A Soul,
I
discovered that Therese was a mystic
par
excellence. Though, this is not readily
identifiable,
because none of the historical or traditional
criteria of mysticism is overtly manifested
in her writings, excepting of course,
that
of the extraordinary incident during
her
illness as a child, when she saw the
statue
of Virgin smile at her. Later on in
Carmel,
contrary to what everyone else thought,
we
find in her letter to Marie in Manuscript
B, Therese writes that she does not
enjoy
any consolations, but rather, that
aridity
and dryness are her lot.
This statement obscures the fact that
she
is indeed a mystic, albeit, not in
the traditional
mysticism we are used hearing or reading
about, which is judged or defined only
by
the extraordinary traditional norms
shown
to mystics of the past, which was suited
to the mentality of the historical
era in
which they occurred.
Serious study of Therese's life, introduces
us to the possibility of the high prayer
of mystical union with God, open to
all the
faithful, which must become the path
and
hope for the challenge of the future
sanctification
of the Church, not only by a holy clergy
but by and through a holy laity as
well.
The understanding and acceptance by
the laity
of their baptismal responsibility must
become
the "way" the goal and hope
of
the future for a new era of evangelization
and revitalization of the Church. In
this
particular moment in history, we see
the
Church suffering, for the most part,
from
a diminishment of priestly and religious
vocations amidst the overwhelming global
secular social revolution of the post-modern
era. Things have changed, and so must
methods
of evangelization change. The faith
of the
lay faithful must be put into Catholic
action
in the world. The Church knows this,
and
is now looking at its assets to do
this.
We the lay faithful are its assets.
While our first thrust for evangelizing
starts
in our homes, it is also particularly
needed
in the market place of work and recreation,
where priests and religious have no
access
to.
Current events dictate that evangelization
is no longer the sole responsibility
of a
shrinking supply of the clergy and
religious,
and neither is holiness the prerogative
of
the cloister only.
When Jesus said: "Be holy"
he was
talking to all his followers, not just
the
apostles.
TWO OF THERESE'S TEACHINGS THAT LEAD
TO MYSTICAL
PRAYER
Here then, is the first of the two
extraordinary
opportunities for great sanctity through
union with God that Therese's little
way
teaches us, that are truly mystical
union,
for by them we practice the likeness
of love.
Understanding that she was loved by
her own
Dad without having to do anything to
make
him love her more, Therese received
the grace
of true understanding and insight into
the
fact that we, as children of God, are
already
so loved by God our Father, that we
do not
have to buy or earn His love, for He
can
never stop loving us.
John the Evangelist comments on this
concept
when he writes: "See what love
the Father
has given us, that we should be called
children
of God: and that is what we are."
1
Jn 3.1
When this truth or concept becomes
a part
of us, our actions are then motivated
by
love, and not by our desires to earn
"brownie
points" or because God is viewed
as
a punitive agent.
Understanding how much she was loved
by God
our Father, was a catalyst for change
in
Therese's life, for God was not loved
and
served in fear because He was a punitive
agent to be placated constantly. Rather,
the way of spiritual childhood introduces
us to the means of mystical union with
God
open to all, who, motivated by love,
unite
their will to God's will through the
practice
of obedience. Samuel the prophet points
out
how important obedience is when he
asks:
"Has the Lord as great delight
in burnt
offerings and sacrifices - as in obeying
the voice of the Lord? Surely to obey
is
better than sacrifice ... For rebellion,
is no less a sin, than divination,
and stubbornness
is like iniquity and idolatry."
1Samuel 15, 22
Stubbornness and rebellion are like
idolatry,
because when we do what we think best
rather
than being obedient to what we are
supposed
to do, we are adoring our self, our
opinion
and our own will, more than God's will
as
it manifests itself for us daily through
our Christian and Carmelite vocations.
Therese motivated by love, lived in
a constant
state of union with God through her
heroic
obedience to the commands of her Christian
faith, the Rule of Carmel and all the
normal
daily events of her state of life.
The practice
of this contemplative obedience, kept
her
constantly in a mystical union with
Jesus
on the Cross. However, it was a mystical
union experienced in dryness, aridity
and
lived in the agony of the dark night
of faith,
hope and love, therefore unidentifiable
as
a prayer of mystical union.
This example of contemplative union
was also
the supreme prayer and teaching of
Jesus
Christ nailed to the cross in obedience
to
the will of Father. His example of
obedience
to the will of the Father reveals that
obedience
motivated by love, is a mystical prayer
of
divine union with God. But sadly we
are totally
blinded to the value of obedience leading
to deep union with God. We hang on
to our
own opinions and decisions because
letting
go of my super-logical plans, my wants
and
my personal agendas hurt and annoy
the ego
and sometimes the body. So inadvertently
we keep ourselves shackled in poverty
and
darkness when opportunities, for the
most
part ordinary but pesky, chosen by
Divine
Providence present themselves to us.
WHAT MAKES HUMBLE OBEDIENCE MYSTICAL
PRAYER?
Here is why and what makes humble obedience
mystical prayer.
From all eternity by God's Holy Spirit,
we
were conceived and existed in the mind
of
God. We were created in the womb of
God's
Love, His Heart, so we know that we
were
created by Love and for love. Four
references
to our pre-earthly existence in God's
mind
were found in Sacred Scriptures. There
must
be many more. First, in Isaiah 49,
Isaiah
describes our state of pre-earthly
existence
when he said: "The Lord called
me before
I was born". Next, in Psalm 139.16-17,
we also find the psalmist describing
it when
he says: "Your eyes beheld my
unformed
substance. In your book were written
all
the days that were formed for me when
none
of them as yet existed." This
tells
us that the earth was not even made
when
we existed in God's mind. The third
reference
to this state is found in Jeremiah
1.5 where
we read: "Before I formed you
in the
womb I knew you; before you were born
I consecrated
you…". Fourth - we find in 2 Timothy
1.8-9, "…but join with me in suffering
for the Gospel, relying on the power
of God,
who saved us and called us with a holy
calling,
not according to our works but according
to His own purpose and grace. This
grace
was given to us in Christ Jesus before
the
ages began…".
Because of our pre-birth existence
in the
mind of God, after our birth, unconsciously,
and without knowing why, there remains
deep
within our subconscious a primordial
memory
of this state of blissful contentment
that
we existed in and experienced. Therefore
each of us carries within us an unexplainable
feeling of emptiness and inner yearning.
As rational adults, we mistakenly think
that
the interior void or illusive blue
bird of
happiness can be found or satisfied
by things,
work, education, or people. But experience
teaches us the hard way, that no matter
how
many or varied our possessions, after
a while
we become bored, and when emptiness
returns,
we ask ourselves, 'Is that all there
is?'
We begin to wonder if our interior
void can
ever be satisfied in this vale of tears?
Can the suffering of interior emptiness
ever
be conquered? How can we become satisfied,
when our yearnings or longings are
so illusive
and frustrating? St. Thomas Aquinas
identified
this state and gave us an eternal truth
when
he wrote: "My soul is restless
until
it rests in you."
God's Word in Sacred Scriptures and
our Faith
teach us that the only way that the
void
within can be filled with inner peace
and
the gifts of the Holy Spirit here on
earth,
is through obedience to, and union
with God's
will. For inner peace and contentment
are
the gifts and fruit of the Holy Spirit.
(See
Gal 2.22-25); and "When anyone
acknowledges
that Jesus in the Son of God, God dwells
in Him and he in God." 1Jn 414-15
Therese taught us how to live this
through
her way of humble childlike obedience
motivated
by love. Her faith was so deep and
strong
that she responded to the God of love
with
all the love in her heart, even thought
she
felt that it was inadequate and suffered
dryness in prayer. We too suffer from
feelings
of never being able to pray well enough,
no matter how hard we try, and for
the most
part all we are capable of giving are
little
ordinary things. In the writings of
St Bernard
of Clairveaux' we find consolation
to us
as he says: "It is true that the
creature
loves less because she is less. But
if she
loves with her whole being nothing
is lacking
where everything is given." Liturgy
of the Hours Vol. IV Page 1334
To this day, the enormous implications
of
obedience are still unidentified, unrecognized
and not understood for its potential
and
value as prayer that places us in a
mystical
union with God. John of the Cross refers
to this death to self obedience as
the perfect
spiritual life. (Living Flame of Love,
Introduction)
We are so pre-conditioned to identify
mystical
prayer by the complex signs of traditional
and historical mysticism of ages past,
which
were suited to the mentality of their
particular
age, that we fail to grasp the enormous
significance
of, and the extra-ordinary potential
for
mystical union with God that every
humble
loving voluntary act of obedience is.
HOW DO THESE LITTLE ACTS OF OBEDIENCE
TO
GOD'S WILL BECOME MYTSICAL UNION?
Simply because every loving voluntary
act
of humble obedience to God's will returns
us to the state of Divine union with
God,
closest to that which we experienced
when
we existed in God's mind before our
birth
here on earth; it is the prelude to
a union
that will only happen again after death,
when we return to our Source, if we
have
lived in obedience to the laws of God.
Aridity, dryness, lack of consolations
and
living in the agony of faith and hope,
must
not be allowed to blind us to the holy
potential
Divine Providence offers us each day
to live
in God, united with God, through the
union
of our will with God's will. Our enemy
is
our natural tendency to avoid pain
to the
ego, and our reasoning that obedience
seems
too ordinary and is associated with
pain
and not ecstasy. Plus of course when
I have
to make a choice between what I must
do,
and what I want to do, my own rational
or
pride, convinces me that I know what
is best
for me, so its my way or the highway.
Also, my pride plus my own preconceived
ideas
of mysticism and holiness, mistakenly
lead
me at times to seek and embrace my
will,
because I measure the merit or worth
of my
agenda and plans by the satisfaction
or consolation
they bring, or the false reasoning
that they
are or would be more fruitful than
the humble,
humdrum, boring and irritating duties
that
my Superior or my state of life demand,
that
are a pain in the neck.
Sadly, all the while God, our loving
Father,
remains silently begging, with His
hands
open in love's urgent longings for
our union
with Him, albeit in the agony of the
cross
of the dark night of faith and hope,
during
this one and only short opportunity
of life.
None of us are exempt from these temptations.
Therese's life shows and teaches us,
that
through the martyrdom of voluntary
acts of
obedience motivated by love, trust
and confidence
in God, we can experience a mystical
union
with God even though it is devoid of
any
consolations. This is the imitation
of Christ.
This painful and humbling death-to-self
obedience
is the last thing we would associate
with
mystical prayer. However, the truth
of mystical
union is that when we are "crucified
with Christ, it is no longer I who
live,
but it is Christ who lives in me"
Gal2.19.
John of the Cross refers to this state
as
a likeness of love. Introduction to
the Living
Flame of Love
Jesus also told us that not everyone
who
says Lord, Lord will enter into the
Kingdom
of heaven, but those who do the will
of the
Father.
Therese received the extraordinary
grace
to fully understand the implications
of that
statement. Like a little child too
poor to
buy expensive gifts to please its father,
she gave wholeheartedly what was within
her
ability to give to show God how much
she
loved Him.
In the dark night and agony of faith,
hope
and love, she embraced every little
opportunity
for Divine Union with God while still
living
on earth , through her obedience to
God's
will, for it made her one with God
even before
death, in the unexplainable mystical
way
of God's love. for the ultimate expression
of love is always union with the beloved.
"God is love, and he who lives
in love,
lives in God, and God in Him."
1Jn 4
A SECOND OPPORTUNITY FOR MYSTICAL UNION
Let us look now at the second opportunity,
which is the most sublime and supreme
of
unidentified mystical union with God
that
one can experience here on earth. It
is none
other than the worthy reception of
the Most
Holy Eucharist, for three reasons:
1) Because in the worthy reception
of the
Most Holy Eucharist we become one with
God,
this places or transports back to our
original
pre-birth conception or primary state
of
union with God, when we existed in
the mind
of God, from all eternity.
2) The worthy reception of the Most
Holy
Eucharist is also a Spiritual Marriage
between
the soul and its Spouse.
Almighty God, our Spouse, entering
into and
penetrating the inner most depth of
our being,
our soul. There is no closer union
with God
in heaven or on earth. For in this
extraordinary
union with God in the reception in
the Most
Holy Eucharist we participate in God's
Divinity.
In Jn 5 we get confirmation of this
: "Who
ever eats my flesh, and drinks my blood,
will live in me and I in him, says
the Lord."
Isaiah tells us: "For as a young
man
marries a young woman, so shall your
builder
marry you, and as a bridegroom rejoices
over
the bride, so shall your God rejoice
over
you." Isaiah 6.5
St. Augustine writes of this union:
"I
thought I heard your voice from on
high:
'I am the good of grown men; grow then,
and
you will feed on me. Nor will you change
me into yourself like bodily food,
but you
will be changed into me" Liturgy
of
the Hours Vol IV, Page 1356 Feast of
Augustine
Bishop and Doctor
And, 3 ) The worthy reception of the
Most
Holy Eucharist, is also a prelude of
our
eternal union with God in heaven, where
we
will be re-united to the Source of
our being,
returned to our pre-birth perfect union
with
our Creator forever.
The little way of spiritual childhood
teaches
us two opportunities for mystical union
with
God. One, that every time, with love's
urgent
longings we unite ourselves to God,
through
the worthy reception of His Body, Blood
Soul
and Divinity, we participate and are
united
in the life of the Holy Trinity, which
is
a return to our first existence when
before
creation of the world we existed in
the mind
of God. And our second opportunity
for mystical
union with God is by the death-to-self
union
of obedience to God's will, by which
we not
only anticipate our blissful existence
in
heaven, albeit in faith, but we participate
in a mystical way in the very life
of God
while we are still here on earth.
St. Bernard of Clairveaux speaks of
this
spiritual marriage when he writes of
the
soul who loves so ardently:
"To love so ardently then is to
share
the marriage bond; she cannot love
so much
and not be totally loved, and it is
in the
perfect union of two hearts that complete
and perfect marriage consists…"
Liturgy
of the Hours Volume IV Page 1334
It is proposed here, that the concrete
example
of Therese's life introduces us to
a new,
simple, yet profound doctrine of mystical
prayer, attainable to all who obey
Jesus
command "Follow Me" because
they
love Him. We are too little and too
poor
to strive for huge tasks. We are not
eagles
but little helpless birds that God
gives
the tools to soar to great heights
in prayer.
The first tool is the through humble
practice
of obedience, motivated by love and
done
in complete confidence and trust in
God's
help. St. Paul encourages this radical
confidence
when he wrote of God: "My grace
is sufficient
for you for my power is made perfect
in weakness"
2Cor.12. 9
The second opportunity for unrecognized
mystical
union with God is as already stated,
the
worthy reception of the Most Holy Eucharist.
WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF THESE?
Both of these tools are directly related
to the words in the Our Father: "…may
Thy will be done earth as it is in
heaven…".
But not just for the obvious reason
of obedience,
there is a deeper meaning. By these
words,
Jesus is not only inviting us to do
God's
will, but He also giving us the reason
why
we should embrace these opportunities
for
union, and what the practical and helpful
consequence of this Divine union of
wills
means.
By these particular words in the Our
Father,
Jesus reveals the secret, that the
union
of love is His gift to us to fill the
emptiness
or void within that we so urgently
long to
satisfy. For by our participation in
the
life of Christ here on earth, we will
already
possess the peace being enjoyed by
the blessed
in heaven. May "thy will be done
on
earth as it is in heaven".
We know that Therese knew this secret,
for
we see that she enjoyed interior peace
in
spite of her sufferings. John Paul
II tells
us that "An unmistakable characteristic
of Christian joy is that it can coexist
with
suffering because is it totally based
on
love." JP.II 14/12/03 ZE031214
My prayer for all of us is that:
Through the mingling of our will with
God's
will
May we share in His Divinity,
Who humbled Himself to share in our
humanity.
(copyright 2005, printed with permission)
(Biblical quotes taken from NRSV).
POEM
When I am dying,
How glad I shall be
That the lamp of my life
is burned out for Thee,
That sorrow has darkened the path I
trod.
That thorns and not roses
were strewn over the sod.
That anguish of spirit
was so often mine,
Since anguish of spirit
was so often Thine.
My cherished Rabboni,
How glad I shall be
To die with a hope of a welcome from
Thee.
(Poem downloaded from OCDS Yahoogroups,July
2004. The one who posted it said that
she
found it in a diocesan priests' newsletter
in India, years ago. The author might
be
Cardinal Parecaattil, she was not sure.
)