Homily by Father Emmanuel Schwab

Friday 1er November 2024

Solemnity of All Saints – Year B

1st reading: Revelation 7,2-4.9-14

Psaume : 23 (24),1-2,3-4ab,5-6

2rd reading: 1 John 3,1-3

Gospel: Matthew 5, 1-12a

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The Church, every year, makes us hear these readings for the feast of All Saints, and these Beatitudes reveal to us a paradoxical happiness. Saint Therese is undoubtedly one of the spiritual authors who is the most paradoxical on this question of happiness, since her happiness is to suffer with Jesus, which we have a lot of trouble understanding. Therese is convinced of this, she writes this to Mother Marie de Gonzague:

Perfect happiness is not found in the valley of tears. (LT 190 to Mother Marie de Gonzague – June 29, 1896)

We understand it well, we have the intuition: we have been able to know great joys in our life, but they do not last and we feel that we aspire to something bigger, more beautiful, deeper. We are called children of God, St. John tells us, we really are, but what we are and what we will be has not yet been made manifest. We will have to wait for the Parousia, that is, the manifestation of Christ in glory at the end of time, so that everything is revealed to us, including our own mystery. But yet already, in and through the sacraments of the Church, Heaven is present on earth.

The Book of Revelation does not speak to us about tomorrow, it speaks to us about today: "Who are these people and are they gentle? - They come out of the great trial; they have washed their robes, they have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.". This is exactly what happened to us on the day of our baptism: we were made white by the blood of the Lamb, we have been plunged into the death of Christ in order to rise with him in a sacramental way, that is, in a real but veiled way. What we will be does not yet appear clearly. Thus, what this passage from the Book of Revelation expresses describes our situation: And These people dressed in white robes, who are they? Well, they are before the throne and before the Lamb, they sing the glory of God. They first recognize that salvation belongs to God, they bow down before him and they sing his glory: “Praise, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honor, power and might to our God forever and ever! Amen!” This is the spiritual situation of the baptized; but it is not experienced automatically, it is up to us to live it. It is up to us to recognize that salvation belongs to God, that it is God who is the only Savior and who realizes this salvation in Jesus. It is not I who am my savior… And on this path, Thérèse is truly a spiritual mistress to teach us to see that the work of God is always first in our existences, that it is a question of welcoming what God does and responding with a love of reciprocity. Having recognized that this salvation is given to us unceasingly by God in Jesus, it is a question of letting our praise rise to recognize the goodness of God.

To Abbé Bellière, Thérèse wrote this in April 1897:

Do not think that it is humility that prevents me from recognizing the gifts of the good Lord, I know that He has done great things in me and I sing it every day with joy. I remember that he must love more to whom more has been given, so I try to make my life an act of love…

Do we know all the wonders God has done for us? Are we aware of them? Do we sometimes take the time to look, since the moment God called us into existence, at all that the Lord has done for us? And how do we give thanks to Him daily?

Thérèse continues:

… I no longer worry about being a small soul, on the contrary I rejoice in it. This is why I dare to hope that “my exile will be short” but it is not because I am ready; I feel that I will never be if the Lord does not deign to transform me Himself; He can do it in an instant; after all the graces with which He has filled me I still await this one from His infinite mercy. (LT 224 to Abbé Bellière)

The Gospel of the Beatitudes makes us hear a paradoxical happiness. The world in which we live does not exalt poverty of heart or poverty of spirit, does not exalt tears, does not exalt gentleness, does not exalt hunger and thirst for justice. It exalts mercy less and less. It no longer loves purity of heart… This violent world since chapter III of the Book of Genesis is not improving. There are few visible peacemakers, there are many persecuted for justice and Christians encounter opposition in many parts of the world. “Rejoice and be glad,” said Jesus, and Thérèse seeks her happiness in Heaven present on earth, that is to say in Jesus. She wrote to Céline in July 1894:

Keeping the word of Jesus, this is the only condition of our happiness, the proof of our love for Him. But what is this word? ... It seems to me that the word of Jesus is Himself ... Him Jesus, the Word, the Word of God! ... [...] Jesus is already preparing his kingdom for us, as his Father prepared it for him. He prepares it for us by leaving us in the trial, He wants our face to be seen by creatures, but that it be as if hidden so that no one recognizes us except Him alone! ... But also what happiness to think that the Good Lord, the entire Trinity is looking at us, that it is in us and takes pleasure in considering us. (LT 165 to Céline - July 7, 94)

This gaze of God on us, on each one of us… Thérèse understands that this gaze of God is not the gaze of a supervisor who has his whip in his hand and who waits for the slightest fault to punish, but that it is a gaze of mercy that finds its joy in contemplating his creature. Thérèse knows her weakness well, and she welcomes this happiness by keeping the word of Jesus.

And we see clearly, when we read her writings, that the Word of God dwells deeply in her heart, since she never ceases to quote it or to make it her own word. But also this happiness that Thérèse discovers is to walk with Jesus, to take the same path as him. And since he offered his life for us, and suffered his Passion and his Cross for us — and when I say “for us,” it is for each of us; each of us must be able to say with Saint Paul: “the Son of God loved me and gave himself up for me” (Gal 2,20:XNUMX) — then Thérèse has the desire to do the same in reciprocity of love for Jesus.

She wrote to Céline the following month:

What a joy to suffer for the One who loves us madly and to pass for fools in the eyes of the world. (LT 169 to Céline – August 19, 1894)

This is undoubtedly one of the points that is most difficult for us to understand in Saint Therese: this love of suffering. She does not love suffering for its own sake, but she loves suffering because, in this suffering, she joins Jesus, because, in this suffering, she shares the Passion of Jesus. This contemplation of the Word of God who became man, who, having become man, wanted to die on the cross, and who, in an even greater abasement, wanted to leave us the mystery of his presence in the Eucharist. This triple abasement of the Incarnation, of the Cross and of the Eucharist fascinates Therese and she herself wants to enter into this movement. And she understands that this movement includes suffering.

In “Star at large”, Guy de Larigaudie has this magnificent sentence:

"The world we live in is not our size. And we have heavy hearts, sometimes with all the nostalgia for heaven."

Thérèse wrote a little note for her three Carmelite sisters in June 1897, she wrote: I find nothing on earth that makes me happy; my heart is too big, nothing that is called happiness can satisfy it. My thoughts fly away towards Eternity, time is going to end!… my heart is peaceful like a quiet lake or a serene sky; I do not regret the life of this world, my heart thirsts for the waters of eternal life!… A little more and my soul will leave the earth, end its exile, end its fight… I ascend to Heaven… I touch the homeland, I win the victory!… I will enter the abode of the elect, see beauties that the eye of man has never seen, hear harmonies that the ear has never heard, enjoy joys that the heart has never tasted… Here I am at this hour that each of us has so desired!… It is very true that the Lord chooses the little ones to confound the great of this world… I do not rely on my own strength but on the strength of Him who on the Cross conquered the powers of hell. I am a spring flower that the master of the garden picks for his pleasure… We are all flowers planted on this earth and that God picks in their time, a little earlier, a little later… I, a little ephemeral, am leaving first! One day we will meet again in Paradise and we will enjoy true happiness!… (LT 245 to his three Carmelite sisters – June 1897)

May, brothers and sisters, the company of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus give us a taste for Heaven, enable us to keep our gaze fixed on this beautiful Heaven, on this paradise towards which we are walking, and to live this life here below, making our choices according to this Heaven towards which we are walking.

Yes, God wants us to be holy with him. He gave us the first fruits of this holiness in baptism. It is for us, following Jesus, in loving response to this love that precedes us, to deploy this holiness to rejoice the heart of God.

Amen

Father Emmanuel Schwab, Rector of the Shrine