St. Therese of Lisieux

The Greatest Saint of Modern Times

St. Therese of Lisieux has been called the greatest saint of modern times. She sought a path to holiness that was new, short, and straight. That path would be later called her “little way”.

The Little Way

The little way is of love and mercy. It can be called the little way of mercy. It is the path of spiritual childhood: boundless trust and boundless confidence in the goodness and mercy of God.

Therese lived in a time that was marked by the heresy of Jansenism. It has been called the heresy that breaks the Lord’s heart more than any other.

Jansenism teaches that only the perfect and elite are worthy of God’s love. Therese found her little way and reminds us of just the opposite: God is love and mercy itself. He is worthy of all our trust.

Those who put all their trust in the merciful heart of Jesus will never be disappointed.

The Offering to Merciful Love

While many people know St. Therese’s little way, not many people no of her offering to merciful love. Therese’s sisters pointed out that the offering to merciful love was beyond important to St. Therese. They went so far as to say that “her whole life revolved around it.” Why? Because it was her offering to Jesus’ Sacred Heart for the sake of consoling him. It was Therese’s offering to the merciful love in the heart of Jesus, a love that is often rejected.

At the time of St. Therese, other sisters were making an offering to God, but this offering was not an entrustment to divine mercy, rather it was to divine justice. Essentially, there were sisters in Therese’s convent who chose to offer themselves to God’s justice. Basically, they prayed: “God, give to me all of the punishments that are owed to sinners in the world; give to sinners all the blessings and graces due to me as a religious. Surprisingly, God would take them up on this offer. In fact, many of the sisters ended up sick, and some of them died.

Therese found this to be bold, but she had no interest in making such an offering. Rather she would offer herself to God’s merciful love. The saint said, “If souls can offer themselves to God’s justice, how much more can we offer ourselves to God’s mercy. God’s justice extends over the earth, but his mercy extends to the heavens.”

On June 9th, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, St. Therese offered herself to merciful love and she did NOT regret it. From that day, everything changed; she described her path as not one of fear but as one that set her “full sail on the waves on confidence and love.” “I am far from being on the path of fear” remarked Therese.

This is because “perfect love casts out all fear.” And because in her offering to merciful love, Therese had remarkable insight: Jesus’ love and mercy is often rejected by those whom he bled and died for. Therese realized that she could at least console Jesus by offering to receive the rejected love and mercy swollen up in the heart of Jesus. As Jesus said to St. Faustina, when my graces are spurned by a soul and the person whom the graces of my mercy were intended for reject my grace and mercy, it does not get wasted. Another soul receives it.

Therese wanted to be that soul who loving consoles the heart of Jesus by receiving the ocean of merciful love shut up within the heart of Jesus Christ.

Her Smile

Remember the smile of Therese!