Memorial of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus

The Little Way to Holiness

Today we celebrate Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus — Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. She is one of the most loved saints in the Church, and yet her life was actually very simple.

Thérèse was born in France in 1873. She entered the Carmelite convent when she was only fifteen years old, and she died of tuberculosis when she was just twenty-four. She never traveled the world preaching. She never founded a religious order. She spent most of her short life hidden away in a convent. And yet today she is a Doctor of the Church.

And there is something else remarkable about her. She is one of the patron saints of missionaries — even though she never went to the missions herself. Thérèse had a great desire for people to know Christ. She prayed for missionaries, corresponded with missionary priests, and offered her prayers and sacrifices for their work. She understood that even from behind the walls of a convent, she could participate in the mission of the Church.

And that really tells us something about Thérèse. She believed that we don’t have to do something spectacular in order to do something great for God. She called this her “Little Way.”

And today’s Gospel fits her perfectly. The disciples ask Jesus, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?” And Jesus calls a child over and says, “Unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus isn’t telling us to be childish. He is telling us to be childlike — to trust God, to depend upon Him, and to realize that we don’t have to prove ourselves to Him or somehow earn His love. That became the heart of Thérèse’s spirituality.

And she tried to live it in very ordinary ways. There was one sister in the convent whom Thérèse found particularly difficult. There were things about this sister that irritated her. But instead of avoiding her or showing her irritation, Thérèse made a deliberate effort to treat her with kindness. She smiled at her. She helped her. She treated her with such warmth that the sister apparently thought Thérèse had a special affection for her.

That was the Little Way in practice. It is easy to love the people we naturally like. Sometimes holiness is found in how we treat the person who gets on our nerves.

And our first reading from Isaiah gives us a beautiful image of the God whom Thérèse trusted: “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.” That was the God Thérèse came to know — a God whose love she could trust completely.

And maybe that is what Saint Thérèse leaves us with today. Most of us will never be asked to do anything spectacular for God. But every day we are given little opportunities to love: to be patient when we would rather be impatient, to be kind to someone we find difficult, to forgive, or to make some small sacrifice that nobody else will ever know about.

Those things can seem very small. But Saint Thérèse understood that when something small is done with great love, it isn’t really small at all.

That was her Little Way. And it is a way to holiness that every one of us can follow.