HOMILY FEAST OF ST THERESE
This weekend we celebrate the feast of our patroness, St. Therese, who in her desire to be childlike, humbly called herself a “Little Flower”– little in her own eyes, but great in the eyes of God.
In her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, St. Therese tells of how she read First Corinthians in which St. Paul describes the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ and we, the baptized, as members of that Body: St. Paul says some are apostles, some are prophets, some areteachers. St. Therese says, “I was not satisfied” because “Irecognizedmyself in none of the members St. Paul described.” But she kept reading and found where St. Paul says, “Set your hearts on the greater gifts. I will show you the way that surpasses all others”; i.e., the way of love. St. Paul insists that the greater gifts and positions of authority are nothing at all without love. Once she realized this, Therese says: “Love appeared to me to be the hinge for my vocation. . . I knew that the Church had a heart and that such a heart appeared to be aflame with love. I knew that one love drove the members of the Church to action, . . . Then, nearly ecstatic with the supreme joy in my soul, I proclaimed: ‘O Jesus, at last I have found my calling: my calling is love. In the heart of the Church, I will be love.’”
What did this mean for St. Therese? How did she live out her vocation to be “love in the heart of the Church”? She realized that love is put into action by service and self-sacrifice. Therefore, Therese resolved during her entire life never to pass up an opportunity to make a sacrifice, no matter how small, in the midst of her daily duties. Her entire life was a continuous series of sacrifices, big and small; a continuous self-offering, and therefore a continuous act of love. She said, “Nothing is little which is done by charity, and for charity.”
In her autobiography she gives many examples of how she did this. Here is one example: In her advice to Carmelite novices, she said: “When you are tempted to anger against anyone, the way to obtain peace is to beg God to reward that person for having made you suffer. If we really understood the part patience plays in our sanctification, those who make us suffer have the right to our gratitude.” This is not how most people think and act, but it is the way saints think and act.
And because she is a guide for us all in living out the universal vocation to love by making our lives living sacrifices to God, Pope John Paul II in 1997 proclaimed St. Therese a Doctor of the Church. He then said: “Therese is the youngest of all the doctors [of the Church, having died at 24 years of age], but her . . . insights of faith expressed in her writings are so vast and profound that they deserve a place among the great spiritual masters.” Moreover, St. John Paul said that her “little way of spiritual childhood” is “away within everyone’s reach, a path of trust and total self- abandonment to the Lord’s grace,” and he called Therese “a teacher for our time.”
And where did Therese find the strength to live out this vocation of being “love in the heart of the Church” and offering a continuous series of sacrifices? She found that strength in Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and Savior – in praying to Him, and especially in receiving Our Lord’s Body and Blood in Holy Communion, and worshipping and adoring Himin the Eucharist.
Shortly after having received her first Holy Communion in 1884 at the age of 11, she wrote this reflection: “It was not to remain in the ciborium that [Jesus] descends each day from Heaven, but in order to find another heaven which is infinitely more pleasing to Him than the first one, the heaven of our soul, created in His image, the living temple of the adorable Trinity.” St. Therese implored to Jesus to continue to dwell in her after Holy Communion, so that she could continue to adore His presence within her, and be able to intimately communicate with Him in the interior of her soul. St. Therese had a deep devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist – the great Sacrament of Divine Love, and it was from our Eucharistic Lord that she drew the strength to persevere in living a life of charity, of self-sacrifice.
Next Friday, we begin our all-night Eucharistic adoration here at St. Therese Church. Pope Benedict XVI, in his Apostolic Exhortation on the Eucharist, entitled Sacramentum Caritatis, i.e., The Sacrament of Love, teaches us that “Eucharistic adoration is simply the natural consequence of the Eucharistic celebration which is itself the Church’s supreme act of adoration.”
In his discourse to the Roman curia in 2005, Pope Benedict described the relation between participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice (within Mass) and Eucharistic adoration (outside of Mass): “The act of adoration outside of Mass prolongs and intensifies all that takes place within the liturgical celebration. . . . Receiving the Eucharist means adoring the One whom we receive. Precisely in this way and onlyin this way do we become one with Him. . . . Only in adoration can profound and true acceptance develop. And it is precisely in this personal act of encounter with the Lord that develops the social mission that is contained in the Eucharist and which desires to break down barriers – not only between the Lord and us, but also and above all, those that separate us from one another.”
So, do you want to be able to love God more deeply, to pray and communicate with Him more effectively? Do you want to be better able to accept and live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and live a life of sacrificial love? Finally, do you want to be able to lovingly accept others and break down barriers that separate us – between spouses, parents and children, brothers and sisters, and all those with whom we encounter in our daily lives? Then spend time adoring our Lord in the Eucharist.
If you have not yet signed up to take an hour of adoration next Friday night and Saturday morning, Our Lord Jesus Christ is waiting for you to do so. This is a sacrifice, yes, but love is proved by sacrifice.
Let us call upon our patroness, St. Therese, to move the hearts of all in our parish to love Jesus in the Eucharist more deeply, to be willing to spend time in adoration before Him in the Blessed Sacrament, and to inundate our parish with the many graces that will flow, individually and corporately, from time spent in adoration before Jesus, our Eucharistic Lord, in order that we be strengthened to live that life of sacrificial love to which Christ calls us.
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