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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20261001
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DTSTAMP:20260927T114837Z
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SUMMARY:Vigils Reading - St Therese of the Child Jesus
DESCRIPTION:A letter from the “Illustrimissimi” of \nPOPE JOHN PAUL THE FIRST \n◊◊◊ \nI was seventeen years old when I read your autobiography. \nFor me it was like a bolt from the blue. “Story of a little flower” you had \ncalled it. To me it seemed the story of a “steel bar” because of the willpower\, the \ncourage\, and the decision that shone from it. Once you had chosen the path of \ncomplete devotion to God\, nothing then could stand in your way: no illness\, no \nexternal contradictions\, no inner shadows or uncertainty. \nRereading you\, I am impressed now by the way in which you loved God \nand your neighbor. Saint Augustine had written: “We go to God\, not with \nwalking but with loving.” You also call your path the “way of love.” Christ had \nsaid: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” \nPerfectly in line with these words\, you felt yourself like “a little bird without \nstrength and without wings“; in God\, on the contrary\, you saw the eagle\, who \ncame down to carry you to the heights on His won wings. You called divine \ngrace the “elevator\,” which raised you to God quickly and without toil\, since you \nwere “too small to climb the harsh stairway of perfection.“ \nI wrote above “without toil.” Let there be no misunderstanding: that is \ntrue in one aspect\, but in another…Let me remember your last months; your \nsoul advances in a kind of dark tunnel\, it sees nothing of what it formerly saw \nclearly. “Faith\,” you write\, “is no longer a veil\, but a wall.” The physical \nsufferings are so great that they make you say: “If I had not had faith\, I would \nhave given myself death.“ \nNevertheless\, you continue saying\, with the will of the Lord whom you \nlove: “I sing the happiness of Paradise\, but without feeling joy; I sing simply \nthat I want to believe.” Your last words were: “My God\, I love you!“ \nTo God’s compassionate love you had offered yourself as victim. All this \ndid not prevent you from enjoying beautiful and good things: before your final \nillness\, you painted joyously\, wrote poems and little sacred plays\, interpreting \nroles in some of them with the taste of a sensitive actress. \nIn your last illness\, during a moment of remission\, you asked for some \nchocolate pastries. You were not afraid of your own imperfections\, nor even of \nhaving sometimes dozed off in weariness during meditation. (“Mothers love \ntheir children also when they are asleep!“) \nLoving your neighbor\, you drove yourself to render little services\, useful \nbut unobserved\, and to prefer\, when possible\, the people who irked you and had \nleast in common with you. Behind their not very likable faces\, you sought the \nlovable face of Christ. And this effort\, this seeking\, was not noticed. “Mystical \nas she is in chapel and at work\,” the mother superior wrote of you\, “she is \nequally comical and full of fun during recreation\, when she makes us split our \nsides laughing.“ \nThese few lines I have written are very far from containing your complete \nmessage to Christians. They suffice\, all the same\, to indicate some lines for us to \nfollow. \n  \n5 Illustrissimi\, Letters from Pope John Paul I. Albino Luciani/ Little\, Brown and Co.1978. p.147-8.10
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-st-therese-of-the-child-jesus-2/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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