Dear Friends, I want to share an excerpt of my latest book with you. For the Lenten season, I am offering a special sale. Check out the book trailer for The Little Way of Healing Love Through the Passion of Jesus: The Stations of the Cross with St. Therese of Lisieux. Order it now in print or Ebook!
“My grief is beyond healing, my heart is sick within me.”[1]
Father, I want to unite my sufferings to your Son’s and be healed, but I am afraid. Does it mean I have to remember the things I have tried so hard to forget, the things that have caused me so much pain? Will it hurt? Does it mean I have to forgive those who have wounded me? What if I am better as I am?
My Child, do not be afraid. I will heal you with My tenderness, and save you in My love. The memories will soften. As you bring them to Me, I will console you. I will hold you through your tears.
“My strength and my courage is the Lord, and he has been my savior.”[2]
Walking With St. Thérèse
“God has deigned to make me pass through many types of trials. I have suffered much since I was on earth, but, if in my childhood I suffered with sadness, it is no longer in this way that I suffer. It is with joy and peace” (St. Thérèse).[3] When St. Thérèse was four years old, her mother Zelie died of breast cancer. As a child St. Thérèse was extremely sensitive and melancholy. She was very sick once as a little girl—with physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual torments—and almost died.
Suffering is a part of all our lives. Many feel innocent yet condemned, like Jesus, to bear the wounds of the world: greed, betrayal, loneliness, abuse, sickness, and emptiness. Like St. Thérèse, we are invited to unite our sufferings to the sufferings of Jesus. We are called to look upon his sufferings on the way to Calvary, and behold our savior broken, bruised, and beaten on the cross. “With his stripes we are healed.”[4]
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who took her name as a religious after St. Thérèse, said that “When you look at the crucifix you understand how much Jesus loved you. When you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now.”[5] As a child, St. Thérèse’s father Louis brought her for a walk to visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in a different Church every day. Prior to her death, St. Thérèse’s mother Zelie provided an awesome example of faith, hope, and love in the Blessed Sacrament, even amidst suffering. When she felt so sick and weak that she was unable to open the Church door, Zelie continued to attend daily Mass and humbly waited outside until someone came to open the door. When she felt abandoned, St. Thérèse discovered in the real presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist “consolation” and her “only friend.”[6]
As she grew older, St. Thérèse embraced the sufferings of life as a gift from Our Heavenly Father to draw us and lead us close to him, and to help heal and compassionate (that is, suffer with) others. St. Thérèse longed for suffering because she knew it was on the cross that she was closest to Christ, truly wedded with her spouse. She longed to drink of the chalice as Jesus did: “I have a baptism to receive. What anguish I feel till it is over!”[7] “The cross has followed me from the cradle, but Jesus has taught me to love it passionately.”[8]
St. Thérèse, help us to find peace by uniting our pain to Jesus each moment of each day. May we offer him everything as you did, that we may share in your little way of healing love.
[1] Jer 8:18. [2] Is 12:2. [3] Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1996), 210. [4] Is 53:5. [5] Rosary Meditations from Mother Teresa of Calcutta: Loving Jesus With the Heart of Mary, (Plattsburgh, NY: MBS), introductory letter. [6] Story of a Soul, 87. [7] Lk 12:50. [8] Francois Jamart, O.C.D., trans. Walter Van de Putte, Complete Spiritual Doctrine of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, (New York: Alba House, 1961), 172. Copyright, Mary Beth Bracy. All rights reserved.
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