St. Therese has a special place in my heart. Ever since the beginning of my serious discernment, I was convinced that she had been praying for me. When I came to Canberra in 2008, I visited the Carmelite Monastery in Red Hill where one of the nuns gave me a copy of Therese’s autobiography for free after seeing me staring at that book displayed on their front shelf. I asked them if they could pray for me, that I may be able to join the Missionaries of God’s Love. Three years later, I was back in Canberra, and made my Religious Promises within the Missionaries of God’s Love.
Ever since my childhood, I had a special devotion to the Child Jesus, and it was actually the statue of the Child Jesus that I embraced the very first time I said YES to priesthood. In the mid-year retreat of last year, I was struggling a lot on my vocation. I received a special encouragement, however. I received a vision of Mother Mary, handing over to my arms the Baby Jesus as she sang the words, “Carry Him carefully, treasure Him well..” I also had a special interest in the Shroud of Turin and the quest on gazing upon the Holy Face of Christ. Actually, my spirituality could be summarized in these words: To see the Face of God is my heart’s desire, to gaze upon the lord is my one desire. It was only on reading the autobiography that I found out that Therese’s whole name as a religious was St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.
Her teaching on loving the Lord with the simplicity of a child is what stood out for me the most after reading her autobiography. Ever since the beginning of the year, the Lord has always been leading me to the text on Luke’s Gospel, especially during praise and personal prayer times: “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs” (Lk 18:16). St. Therese discovered that the easy, more direct way to be united to God is by using the elevator that is the arms of Jesus. To be able to be caught up in this elevator, one must remain little.
It has remained in my heart Therese’s writings regarding the forgetting of self, and turning towards God. She spoke strongly against any form of inappropriate self-love. Her love for Jesus has been so great that it manifests itself through the practical ways of loving she chose to perform. I am really very impressed with the way she handled things within the sisterhood. Her approaches to conflicts and even the small ‘irritations’ she had within the monastery were marvelous in nature that one may fall into the danger of seeing them as impossible to do if one is not saintly enough as Therese.
But Therese in her writings seemed to emphasize that she wasn’t a saint at all. She longed to become a saint, but it seemed to be very difficult even for her. However, she found the secret towards sainthood. Examining her actions and the choices she had made in relating to others within the Carmelite Monastery leads us to that simple fact that she focused on Jesus and she remained little so as to always remain in Jesus’ arms of love. She always had Jesus in her heart. In all circumstances, she focused on Jesus, and He always led her to the right actions to do, right words to say and even the right thoughts to think.
I could relate to her regarding her sentiments on being well-loved by her sisters in community. She found herself uncomfortable when her sisters praise her and look up to her. Yet God revealed to her that it is His will for her, to veil her weaknesses so that people may only see her greatness and therefore give praise to God. I feel the same way as well most of the time, especially when people look up to me and tell me good things about me. Considering that all of the compliments I receive from people are all true, they are to lead me closer to God because the truth sets us free. Yet I could honestly say that these truths, I’d rather not hear. Therese then encouraged me to accept these compliments not as praises to me but praises to God who created me. I realized that my repulsion to these compliments doesn’t come out of my love for God but of my love for myself. Like her, I must rejoice both on the times that I am affirmed as a person and the times that the Lord decides to lift the veil and expose to the world my weaknesses.
Her humanity was a big highlight in her writings. This is very important; so as to emphasize that human nature is a big part of sainthood, even essential. We tend to think of saints as those people who walked around with halos around their head, never touched a vile object, never thought of evil and never had their feet touching the ground. It’s as if we think of them as angels living on earth. In her writings however, we see how her weaknesses are so real and so human, to the extent that we could relate to the feelings she expressed, the actions she did and the choices she had made. Yet we also see how God’s simple grace brought her to sainthood. This simple grace would not have worked in her life if she did not choose to be simple as well, like a young child giving in to the loving caresses of her father. This encouraged me to face forward, and never think of my weaknesses as an avenue towards hell but an avenue towards heaven, especially when I let myself be dandled upon the knees of my heavenly Father.
Ever since my childhood, I had a special devotion to the Child Jesus, and it was actually the statue of the Child Jesus that I embraced the very first time I said YES to priesthood. In the mid-year retreat of last year, I was struggling a lot on my vocation. I received a special encouragement, however. I received a vision of Mother Mary, handing over to my arms the Baby Jesus as she sang the words, “Carry Him carefully, treasure Him well..” I also had a special interest in the Shroud of Turin and the quest on gazing upon the Holy Face of Christ. Actually, my spirituality could be summarized in these words: To see the Face of God is my heart’s desire, to gaze upon the lord is my one desire. It was only on reading the autobiography that I found out that Therese’s whole name as a religious was St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.
Her teaching on loving the Lord with the simplicity of a child is what stood out for me the most after reading her autobiography. Ever since the beginning of the year, the Lord has always been leading me to the text on Luke’s Gospel, especially during praise and personal prayer times: “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs” (Lk 18:16). St. Therese discovered that the easy, more direct way to be united to God is by using the elevator that is the arms of Jesus. To be able to be caught up in this elevator, one must remain little.
It has remained in my heart Therese’s writings regarding the forgetting of self, and turning towards God. She spoke strongly against any form of inappropriate self-love. Her love for Jesus has been so great that it manifests itself through the practical ways of loving she chose to perform. I am really very impressed with the way she handled things within the sisterhood. Her approaches to conflicts and even the small ‘irritations’ she had within the monastery were marvelous in nature that one may fall into the danger of seeing them as impossible to do if one is not saintly enough as Therese.
But Therese in her writings seemed to emphasize that she wasn’t a saint at all. She longed to become a saint, but it seemed to be very difficult even for her. However, she found the secret towards sainthood. Examining her actions and the choices she had made in relating to others within the Carmelite Monastery leads us to that simple fact that she focused on Jesus and she remained little so as to always remain in Jesus’ arms of love. She always had Jesus in her heart. In all circumstances, she focused on Jesus, and He always led her to the right actions to do, right words to say and even the right thoughts to think.
I could relate to her regarding her sentiments on being well-loved by her sisters in community. She found herself uncomfortable when her sisters praise her and look up to her. Yet God revealed to her that it is His will for her, to veil her weaknesses so that people may only see her greatness and therefore give praise to God. I feel the same way as well most of the time, especially when people look up to me and tell me good things about me. Considering that all of the compliments I receive from people are all true, they are to lead me closer to God because the truth sets us free. Yet I could honestly say that these truths, I’d rather not hear. Therese then encouraged me to accept these compliments not as praises to me but praises to God who created me. I realized that my repulsion to these compliments doesn’t come out of my love for God but of my love for myself. Like her, I must rejoice both on the times that I am affirmed as a person and the times that the Lord decides to lift the veil and expose to the world my weaknesses.
Her humanity was a big highlight in her writings. This is very important; so as to emphasize that human nature is a big part of sainthood, even essential. We tend to think of saints as those people who walked around with halos around their head, never touched a vile object, never thought of evil and never had their feet touching the ground. It’s as if we think of them as angels living on earth. In her writings however, we see how her weaknesses are so real and so human, to the extent that we could relate to the feelings she expressed, the actions she did and the choices she had made. Yet we also see how God’s simple grace brought her to sainthood. This simple grace would not have worked in her life if she did not choose to be simple as well, like a young child giving in to the loving caresses of her father. This encouraged me to face forward, and never think of my weaknesses as an avenue towards hell but an avenue towards heaven, especially when I let myself be dandled upon the knees of my heavenly Father.