St. Therese of Lisieux
Reflection
Therese lived and taught a spirituality of relationship. She believed that only by giving ourselves away to something greater than ourselves could we break through our own selfishness and ego. She tried to relate to everyone and everything intently and with love. Only this way she felt could we she understand the suffering of others. Intimacy for Therese was a matter of moral union. Her spirituality was a manner of doing the ordinary with extraordinary love. “What matters in life,” she wrote, “is not great deeds, but great love.” The world came to know Therese through her autobiography, Story of a Soul.
Prayer
May I see the presence of the Divine in all creation.
Action
Try to live your life attentively and try to find the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Suggested Reading
When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to God, who is unseen. Then God, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Matthew 6:6
You know well enough that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love at which we do them.
Saint Therese
When one loves, one does not calculate.
Saint Therese
I can nourish myself on nothing but truth
Saint Therese
The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily
do not rob the little violet of it’s scent nor the daisy of its simple charm.
If every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness.
Saint Therese
Without love, deeds, even the most brilliant, count as nothing.
Saint Therese
Holiness consists simply in doing God’s will, and being just what God wants us to be.
Saint Therese
A word or a smile is often enough to put fresh life in a despondent soul.
Saint Therese
There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
Leo Tolstoy
I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.
Lao Tzu
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
Hans Hofmann