Wednesday, July 17 : Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, says the Lord” (Is 55,8). Merit does not consist in doing or giving much, but rather in receiving, in loving much. It is said, it is much sweeter to give than to receive,(Acts 20,35) and it is true. But when Jesus wills to take for Himself the sweetness of giving, it would not be gracious to refuse. Let us allow Him to take and give all He wills. Perfection consists in doing His will, and the soul that surrenders itself totally to Him is called by Jesus Himself “His mother, His sister,” and His whole family (Mt 12,50). And elsewhere: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word (that is, he will do my will) and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him” (Jn 14,23). Oh, how easy it is to please Jesus, to delight His Heart, one has only to love Him, without looking at one’s self, without examining one’s faults too much. Your Therese is not in the heights at this moment, but Jesus is teaching her to learn to draw profit from everything, from the good and the bad she finds in herself. He is teaching her to play at the bank of love, or rather He plays for her and does not tell her how He goes about it, for that is His affair and not Therese’s. What she must do is abandon herself, surrender herself, without keeping anything, not even the joy of knowing how much the bank is returning to her… In fact, [spiritual] directors have others advance in perfection by having them perform a great number of acts of virtue, and they are right; but my director, Jesus, teaches me not to count my acts. He teaches me to do all through love, to refuse him nothing, to be content when he gives me a chance of proving to him that I love him. But this is done in peace, in abandonment; it is Jesus who is doing all in me, and I am doing nothing.

Roman Extraordinary (Tridentine) Daily Readings – rosary,team