Fr Peter Helman

“I prefer the monotony of obscure sacrifice to all ecstasies. To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul.” 

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Dear Beloved, 

These are the beautiful words of the saint whose feast the Church celebrates today, Saint Thérèse Martin of Lisieux (1873-1897). She was a young Carmelite nun known as “Little Flower,” who entered the convent with two of her sisters at the age of 15 and who died there slowly and painfully nine years later from tuberculosis. Her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, tells of God’s grace outpoured in a heart drawn out of itself and given to God. 

Thérèse teaches us a great deal about how we see ourselves and the value of our strivings. Ours is a world in which the appearance of things plays too large a part. God peers into the heart alone for the truth of who we are. 

The reading from the Gospel of Luke set for her feastday is the story of the widow’s offering (Luke 21:1-4). Jesus stands in the temple one day together with his disciples and sees a widow offering to God from what little she has two small coins. While all around her those with greater means give more, he says, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all the living that she had.” 

Thérèse asks whether what we strive after will fulfill us. Where is lasting joy to be found? Where do we begin to look for it? She commends the way. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. There is a deeper-seated joy that the world cannot give.We gain our life by laying it down, she says, by giving up ourselves to God's service. 

This morning, may Saint Thérèse's prayer of self-offering be ours too:

My God, I offer you all that I do today

for the intentions and the glory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

I want to sanctify every beat of my heart,

my thoughts and my simplest works

by uniting them to his infinite merits.

I want to repair for my faults

by casting them into the furnace of his merciful love.

O my God!

I ask you for myself and for those dear to me

the grace to fulfil perfectly your holy will

and to accept for love of you

the joys and sorrows of this passing life,

so that one day we may be reunited in Heaven for all eternity.

Amen.

Yours in Christ~

Fr Peter