1 October 2022
Memorial of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Virgin and Doctor of the Church
St. Therese of Lisieux might be one of the most interesting and compelling saints in the history of the Church. From her autobiography Story of a Soul (which is a personal favorite), we know that the single greatest desire of her heart was to perform heroic deeds for God and to give all that she possessed in mind, body, and spirit to and for the Divine Majesty. Despite this, Therese never left her Carmelite monastery. She wasn’t martyred for her faith. She didn’t leave a prolific collection of eclectic spiritual monographs like other Doctors of the Church.
What she did leave for us, in many ways, is actually better. Therese, in her child-like love and simplicity charted out for us what she referred to as “the Little Way”. She recognized that the value of an act has nothing to do with the objective act itself but rather is directly related to the love, intentionality, and devotion with which it is carried out. This is not a novel concept for Christianity. St. Paul himself relates that without real love, even the greatest of accomplishments are actually meaningless (1 Cor. 13:1-3). St. Therese takes this precept to new heights, however, and illustrates for us via plentiful examples from her own life that any action, now matter how small or seemingly insignificant, is of infinite value to God if done with great love and devotion.
Let us consider our own lives this day through the lens of the Little Way of St. Therese. Let us recognize that even the most seemingly mundane or ordinary tasks that we carry out each and every day can be of immeasurable value if offered to God in love. Let us pray for the grace to imitate the Little Flower in all that we do and offer all of our thoughts, words, and actions wholly and solely to the praise of our Creator.