The Little Way

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen has nothing to do with the title of today's blog. I just decided to start with a couple of quotes from one of his writings. They are a postscript to my meanderings on aging. He had quite an impact through his writing, radio and TV programs for a long time, may God rest his soul. He was showman, and I think, saint.

    When I resigned, I did not "retire." I retreaded.  I took on another kind of work. I believe that we spend our last days very much the way that we lived. If we have lived with ease, taking our rest, never exerting ourselves, then we have a long dragging out of our days, like a slow leak. If we live intensely, I believe that somehow or other we can work up until the day God draws the line and says: "Now it is finished."
                                                                       and another quote:
    Retirement has many advantages. It becomes a time to remake one's soul, to interiorize, to meditate and begin a cram course for the final exam.   (Remember, I mentioned the cramming part the other day).
                               These two quotes are from his Treasure in Clay

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Now for today's blog.  It is the feast day in the Church, of St. Therese of Lisieux of the Child Jesus, sometimes called "The Little Flower."  She was born in 1897 and died at the very young age of 24. She wanted so much to devote herself to God and was allowed to enter the convent of Carmel of Lisieux when she was only 15. She wanted to love God perfectly and to conquer souls for Jesus. When she was dying of tuberculosis she promised to "spend her heaven in doing good upon earth." 

Therese felt that there was no one great thing that she could do to become a saint, so she made each little act or sacrifice an offering. She is also called the Saint of the "Little Way."  She had exceptional devotion to the Child Jesus.

"I have always wanted to become a saint. Unfortunately, when I have compared myself with the saints, I have always found that there is the same difference between the saints and me as there is between a mountain whose summit is lost in the clouds and a humble grain of sand trodden underfoot by passers-by. Instead of being discouraged, I told myself: God would not make me wish for something impossible and so, in spite of my littleness, I can aim at being a saint. it is impossible for me to grow bigger, so I put up with myself as I am, with all my countless faults. but I will look for some means of going to heaven by a little way which is very short and very straight, a little way that is quite new."

"We live in an age of inventions. We need no longer climb laboriously up flights of stairs; in well-to-do houses there are lifts. And I was determined to find a lift to carry me to Jesus, for I was far too small to climb the steep stairs of perfection. So I sought in holy scripture some idea of what this life I wanted would be, and I read these words: Whosoever is a little one, come to me. It is your arms, Jesus, that are the lift to carry me to heaven. And so there is no need for me to grow up: I must stay little and become less and less."

She truly was a little flower in God's garden of saints, a small rose, delicate, and  whose aroma attracts others to contemplate the little way  to reach heaven.

10/3/11