We’ve probably all been in a situation where we’ve said something thinking we were funny, clever, or helpful only to realize that the other party couldn’t agree less. Our face flushes red, and we end up feeling foolish and embarrassed. This was likely the case for James and John who are rebuked by Jesus for asking whether or not he wanted them to call down fire from heaven to consume an unwelcoming village.
Jesus’ rebuke is justified. Sometimes an immediate correction to a wrongdoing, for as well-intended as it may have been, is the greatest form of care and mercy one can show. In spite of our many mistakes and sins, however, we must never feel unwelcome in the presence of God, whose anger lasts but a moment, and whose favor lasts forever.
St. Therese of Lisieux, whose feast we celebrate today, offers us a beautiful image to drive this point home. When we have fallen, she says, we are to approach the Lord with the humble, loving trust of a child that says to his father, “Daddy, I’m not perfect, I do lots of silly things, but you know how much I love you! And when I do something silly, I ask you to punish me with a kiss!”