February 23, 2023

We read in the Gospel according to Saint Luke: “Be merciful as your Father is merciful” (6,36). Saint Thérèse understood this well. On the little path of trust and abandon that she chose to take, she allowed herself to be pruned by the merciful Love of the Father's heart.

The season of Lent invites us to taste the Mercy of God so that we become spongy with the Mercy of God as a sponge swells with water under an abundant source to become what it was created for.

We become merciful in the very movement where God shows us Mercy: “To live on Love is not on earth / To set up your tent at the top of Tabor. / With Jesus, it is to climb Calvary / It is to look at the Cross as a treasure” (Poetry 17,4).

The Mercy that St. Therese experiences expands her heart and releases in her the missionary desire so that others may benefit from this same grace, be saved and taste the happiness of knowing that they are loved by the Father. This is the path to his conversion at Christmas 1886 when Jesus “made me a fisher of souls, I felt a great desire to work for the conversion of sinners […] I felt, in a word, charity entering my heart, the need to forget myself to please and since then I have been happy!…” (Ms A, 45v°).

Mercy calls Charity. The spongy heart of Mercy tested by the yardstick of the cross liberates Charity. Saint Thérèse experiences it when she is bedridden and cared for by her sisters: “At this moment the nurses […] are not afraid to take two thousand steps where twenty would suffice[1], so I was able to contemplate charity in action ! (Ms C, 17r°).

Charity as the fruit of Mercy received in a heart of the poor like that of Thérèse on her sickbed, of suffering and abandonment, summons us to humility which makes us understand how much we need others to move forward on the way to holiness.

Thus Thérèse understands her vocation in a clear way: “Yes, I have found my place in the Church and this place, O my God, it is you who have given it to me… in the Heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be Love… thus I will be everything… thus my dream will be realized!!!…” (Ms B, 3v°).

The Church then reveals herself as a way of holiness to which Jesus invites us: “I give you a new command[1]: it is to love one another. As I have loved you, you also love one another. (John 13,34).

Saint Thérèse understands this command very concretely. Such a sister for whom she does not necessarily have sympathy: "Jesus tells me that this sister must be loved, that we must pray for her, even though her conduct would lead me to believe that she does not love me not […] And it's not enough to love, you have to prove it. (Ms C, 15v°).

Have a nice climb to Easter

Father Olivier Ruffray, Rector of the Sanctuary, for the March issue of the Review Therese of Lisieux

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