St. Therese of Lisieux: Follow the Little Way! - Explaining the Faith

so well thank you again everybody for joining us from all over the world i'm father chris aylar one of the marian fathers here at the national shrine of the divine mercy and we're continuing our series of bringing you the best what i feel is the best of what i learned in seminary uh this has been a regular event now for a year and a half since kovid started and god bless all of you who have been with us all our talks are on our youtube and facebook channels so today i'm excited because a big part of our catholic faith which seminaries do not teach enough of is the saints and so this whole month of october is power packed with saints and so let us offer today or ask for the intercession of saint therese of lazu the little flower and i'll say this before we begin it's not easy in my opinion to become a saint it's a lot of work it's a lot of sacrifice but saint therese found us of all the ones i've ever learned the easiest way and it's called the little way and that's what we're going to describe to you today let us begin with the prayer in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen heavenly father we ask that you send the holy spirit down upon us to open our minds and our hearts to receive the grace you wish to bestow through the intercession of a beloved saint named saint therese the little flower and through her little way may we all become saints all who are watching and the ones we are praying for and we ask this through christ our lord in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen god bless you all and thank you i i'm racing in and out uh i was in florida yesterday uh you know it's funny because i always teach about trust and and everything and so i got to the uh orlando airport yesterday well before my flight and i wanted to work on this talk for today and all of a sudden i get a notification that the flight's going to be delayed well i noticed then i was going to miss my connector in philly so i said okay what do i do and i started walking down the to the customer service and i see at the airport another flight to philly which is like two hours earlier and i said oh thank you lord and so i go to the flight for philly and i they had one seat left and i got on that seat i'm like thank you lord well then that flight was delayed and they said 15 more minutes then a half an hour then 45 minutes then an hour then an hour and a half then two hours finally that plane left later than my original flight that i was supposed to get on so i missed the connector and they missed my luggage because the flight the plane that the luggage went on didn't catch up with the connector and so anyway i lost my luggage and i didn't have wallet i don't have id i don't have money i don't have anything and i'm trying to get home and my gas tank was empty and so i'm just having the worst day and i'm in the airline seat and i'm just sitting and this guy next to me leans over and he says father he says and here you know we're supposed to be the ones that console the laity and he says father what can i do for you and so i was just like god it's been a rough day and and so he starts telling me about trusting god and so i was laughing and it was funny because i was then later in the flight as we landed i was talking um trying to get some help from somebody up here in stockbridge and i said you know i don't think i'm going to make it home i said if i just had five dollars to get gas if i just had five dollars i'm talking real low because i don't want them yelling at me on the plane i says if i just had five dollars i could get home but my wallet is in my bag and they lost the bag and i said if i just had five dollars i think i could get home and all of a sudden a hand reaches from the seat behind me and hands a 20 bill to be able to see that's that's the beauty of what we're doing here today this is the beauty of our faith and the beauty of what we have in our catholic faith and not just catholic faith but all people if we just love this is what and catholic faith is the way to get to heaven that's why you put the two together the teaching of the church and with love you got the dynamite combination and saint therese found it so let's talk about saint therese you saw on your screen on the title slide that we want to follow the little way this is something that she taught us it is very powerful now who is saint torres we're the most beloved saints all right she was born marie francois therese marta now this is france she was born in france in 1873 she died at only 24 years old in 1897. now we know her as saint therese of the child jesus or some saint therese of lazier which is a town in france where she was from let's look at our next slide here's a famous picture of her with her parents now she was born on january 2nd in 1873 to these pious parents you know they were canonized her parents are canonized so this is beautiful they were canonized in 2015. so her parents are saints how many times do you see where parents and the child are all saints what a family that must have been to live in all right so anyway what's funny is you know these two parents that you see on your screen when they first got married they agreed to live as brother and sister no sexual relations that's how they agreed when they married then they met their confessor and their confessor said no no share and renew the marital covenant you know what's interesting because i counsel people in marriages and i found one common denominator it seems odd but this is the common denominator i have found all the people that i talk to married couples who are struggling worried about divorce not making it none of them are renewing the marital covenant through through the sexual marital act the beautiful act god gives us none of them and likewise all the ones that i meet that are thriving that are are are doing so well they have and and are sharing in a strong renewal of the covenant of the marital covenant act i just find that very interesting and so this confessor says no renew your marital covenant this is a gift of god and so then they had nine children so they really listened so so let's look at the next slide because this is the martin martin family so they had these nine children five of the surviving daughters all became nuns so just think about that all of the nine or excuse me of the five surviving daughters they all became nuns now her mom died though when she was only four leaving her father and her elder sisters to care for little therese now little trez though had her sight set on like her sister's being a nun so anyway at nine excuse me at 15 she became one she actually became a nun dying later as i said a short life at tuberculosis at 24. well anyway she devoted herself to living a life of holiness doing all the things that she did with love and childlike trust and we're going to come back to this to tell you the importance all right so she was known by many for being very simple she wasn't some great academic reminds you of faustina and faustina actually talked to saint torres we'll mention that so anyway her approach to the spiritual life like faustina was very simple all right so together with saint francis of assisi and i would put on there faustina and padre pio but it was voted i don't know who voted cardinals or bishops or whatever that the two most beloved saints in the catholic church are saint francis of assisi who we did last week and saint therese of lizzie now the greatest saints of our time i told you i put is padre pio saint faustina and john paul that was because of their significance okay so i don't go back on that padre pio john paul ii and st faustina i call the greatest saints of modern times because of the the what they did the significance of the impact they had but the church has said the most beloved are saint francis and saint tres and these are the saints i'm bringing to you through these talks we we're going to do john paul coming up we've already done saint francis we've already done padre pio we've already done saint faustina today we're doing saint therese all right now so together pius the 10th called her the greatest and most beloved saint of our times now let's look at our next slide because what's interesting is the basilica at lazier is being is the second largest place of pilgrimage in all of france behind behind only lords look at that basilica is that not incredible that's amazing build god the best god should get the best and so you see on your picture there the shrine or the basilica at le is the second largest place of pilgrimage in all the france behind lourdes all right now let's get into saint therese and what she can teach us and why you're listening today i'm not just giving you a history lesson we're going to give you a spiritual lesson on how to live holiness and how to get to heaven per saint therese i'm going to summarize thousands and thousands of books and articles and things that have been written about saint therese videos and books and and many writings have been written about her i'm going to summarize that all today for you so if you just pick the the core of what we teach you today you'll have enough to be able to know what you got to do according to therese to get to heaven all right she struggled actually she wasn't this perfect saint she struggled in the convent but decided to make an effort to be charitable to all people especially the ones she didn't care for that's always a challenge especially the one she didn't like now she always performed little acts of charity little sacrifices no matter how unimportant they seemed now i want to tell you the example when i first learned her example her first example she ever gave was picking up a pen and she said i can become holy by picking up a pen i'm like what is this okay come on this is crazy now i'm in seminary now i'm a novice and father mark baron is making us read the story of a soul and i'm sitting there going you know i'm like this is just come on this isn't right and man did i get knocked on my knees when i really learned what our faith has in these saints now saint therese says i could become holy by picking up a pen now how is that all right most of us wouldn't think twice about seeing a pen on the floor picking up and putting it back on the desk none of us would really think much of that this is just one example of every single thing you can do what did she say she said okay god's universe what it was and what it is is created in perfect order the way god created the universe everything is in perfect order sin is a disharmony to that order whenever we sin we create disharmony to the order of the universe now that disharmony creates things like plagues and earthquakes but little simple things like things being out of order so by simply picking up that pen and saying out of love for you god and the universe you created i'm gonna put the pen back to help in the tiniest way put order back into your universe that's amazing you think about all the little things that we could do throughout the day just offering it up in love to god something as simple as you know just picking up a pen so that's why i look at your next slide this is where saint therese says everything is so big in religion to pick up a pin out of love can convert a soul what a mystery picking up a pen and she said pin p-i-n and i'm using the word pen either one out of love for god can convert a soul can save a soul do you realize that so every time you do something put something back in order every time you do something you'll hold the door somebody just hold the door for me coming in you can hold the door and say lord i offer this little act up of order to your universe please save a soul with it it's powerful powerful stuff all right these acts helped her to come to a deeper understanding of her vocation she said that she always dreamed about being a missionary even though she never went on mission an apostle or a martyr now yet she was a nun in a quiet cloistered convent in france so how could she fulfill these longings how could she do this simply being a simple cloistered nun she said she found the answer in the simplest ways the answer is love she once wrote 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 with which we do them okay i get these letters all the time people saying father is it better to pray 645 rosaries or 1988 chaplets okay i'm exaggerating but you see the point i get these letters all the time and i always respond it's best that you pray one but pray it with the most possible love you can pray it okay this is this is the answer father michael used to say this all the time he doesn't have time to do hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of prayer but what he does have time is to pick sometime during the day and go into the chapel and give the lord the most possible love you can give him it's way better to spend 15 minutes with our lord where you are totally engaged in pouring out your heart in love then frantically trying to do 65 rosaries they are to be done in love and that was the answer that she found so therese basically said that's how you do it she offered herself as a sacrificial victim to the merciful love of god on june 9th 1895. why is that important well let's look at our next slide as father mike gately explains in his book merciful 33 days to merciful love it basically is a consecration to the merciful love of god you know what that really is it's consecration to divine mercy because we have consecration to mary we have consecration of saint joseph this is actually consecration to divine mercy you want to encompass it all this is it consecration of merciful love saint therese and so this was the feast she did this on the feast of the most holy trinity and after that she noticed that she started getting signs of tuberculosis so she recognized in her illness the mysterious visitation of her divine spouse and she welcomed it she saw jesus coming into her soul through tuberculosis how many of us do that how many of us say i see the lord coming into my soul through covet none of us say that this is what we can learn from saint therese wow she also began to undergo a terrible trial of faith that lasted until her death a year and a half later now remember like mother teresa boy the media wants to clobber our saints the media wants to say that mother teresa didn't even believe in god that's malarkey mother teresa didn't feel the presence of god for 40 years but she certainly had faith and believed that takes even more faith it's easy to believe in god when he comes and reveals himself to us right and so that's not it that's why mother teresa was so powerful was because mother teresa she realized that i don't feel god kept it away from her and she's like why lord are you not revealing yourself you're not letting me feel you and he's like because you have faith she she surmises later in her life because she had faith she wanted god to give those consolations to other people with weaker faith that's amazing and so anyway like mother teresa god seemed silent but she never rejected him we always go through that all of us go through that jp2 said her last words my god i love you are the seal of her life all right she said my heaven will be spent doing good on earth so she's telling us think about that quote saint therese said my heaven will be spent doing good on earth so she's basically telling us she's going to intercede for us i'm going to be doing good on earth so basically that's why saint therese is so powerful go to her now let's go to our next slide because saint therese was proclaimed a doctor of the church by john paul in 1997. now who do you see on your screen right there on the slides are only three other women besides saint teresa of the zoo that were doctors of the church there's only four and we're praying for saint faustina to be the fifth please pray you can visit our website at thedivinemercy.org doctor and help us sign our petition to make st faustina the fifth doctor therese is waiting for her so who were they saint teresa of avila saint catherine of siena saint hildegard and saint therese these are the four women doctors of the church now after and she was made a doctor exactly 100 years after her birth powerful so she was only the third woman at the time proclaimed later came saint hildegard so very very very powerful stuff now she's a special saint even faustina saw her in a dream let's talk about this faustina and therese are partners you want to get on that team now faustina was too also struggling just like therese faustina was struggling interior and in the exterior nothing worked but suddenly she had the thought okay so picture this saint faustina is struggling saint faustina the perfect saint right saint faustina is saying lord i'm struggling and i can't overcome these struggles both interior inside and exterior mortifications and prayer and interior with with you know loving those who annoy her and stuff like that so so saint faustina is basically saying i'm not making it here and all of a sudden she asked jesus what to do and guess what came to her pray to saint therese so saint faustina started praying to saint therese and she said i had a dream of her because it was as if she were get this still living on earth didn't saint therese just tell us that my job in heaven will be to do good on earth so so all of a sudden faustina's having a difficult time she prays to god she has this feeling pray to saint therese she starts praying to saint therese and she says i feel like she's here on earth with me well she is and so this is what goes on so here's what the diary passage 150 said and i want to read to you she began to comfort me this is faustina talking about therese saying that i should not be worried about a particular matter something was bothering faustina but should trust more in god and that funny somebody telling faustina to trust more in god she said this is tress therese said i suffered greatly too but i love faustina she tells it as it is she doesn't mince any words faustina said but i told her i did not quite believe her you gotta love faustina but i did not quite believe her and i said it seems to me that you have not suffered at all can you imagine this dialogue going on between therese and faustina and and but say therese answered me in a convincing manner that she had suffered very much indeed and she said to me faustina know that in three days the difficulty you are worried about will come to a happy conclusion when i was not very willing to believe her now faustina's talking when i was not very willing to believe therese she revealed to me that she was a saint at that moment a great joy filled my soul and i said to her you are a saint yes she answered i am a saint trust that this matter will be resolved in three days now all of a sudden faustina doesn't care about her issue anymore she's fixed on therese and i said dear sweet therese tell me shall i go to heaven and she answered yes she will go to heaven faustina will i be a saint to which she replied yes she will be a saint and so tres is trying to get back to the topic of her issue and faustina keeps going back to i want to be a saint but little therese shall i be a saint as you are raised to the altar by now therese is probably like okay faustina she answered yes you will be a saint just as i am but you first must trust in jesus faustina then asked her if um her mother and father would go to heaven she says i asked her will my mother and father go to heaven and she replied they would she further asked and will my brothers and sisters go to heaven she told me to pray hard for them and gave no definite answer oh that's a wake-up call we need to be praying for our siblings our loved ones i understood that they were in great need of much prayer wow she said now this was a dream and as proverb goes dreams are phantoms only god is faith nevertheless three days later the difficulty was solved very easily just as she had said it was a dream but it had significance wow diary 150 pretty powerful now like faustina her prayers were very powerful so we need to ask for them in 1887 let me tell you one example that i found there's a million examples i could give us a trust but i only picked a couple because a time in 1887 when therese was 14 she documented an amazing event listen to this this is her words now this is saint therese talking i heard of a criminal who had just been condemned to death for some frightful murders it seemed that he would die without repenting i was determined at all cost to save him from hell i used every means i could so just think if a stranger convicted of murder can be saved by therese's prayers how much more can you save your children your spouse your parents your siblings your neighbors your coworkers she said i knew that by myself i could do nothing so i offered god the infinite merits of our lord that's what the chaplet is and the treasures of the church don't forget the church i was quite certain that my prayers would be answered but to give me courage to go on praying for sinners i said to god i am sure you will forgive this wretched man i shall believe listen to this this line blew me away here i am sure you will forgive this wretched man this is therese talking to god i shall believe you have done so even if he does not confess or give any sign of repentance whoa wait a minute father this is heresy you can't go to heaven without forgiving or repenting aha diary 1698 jesus answers this question and it all tied together for me and i'm like oh my gosh this is it listen to what jesus told saint saint faustina god's mercy sometimes touches the sinner at the last moment in a wondrous and mysterious way outwardly it seems if everything were lost but it is not so the soul illuminated by a ray of god's powerful final grace turns to god at the last moment with such a power of love then in an instant it receives from god forgiveness of all sin and punishment while outwardly it shows no sign either of repentance or of contrition in other words god's working behind the scenes you don't see it i don't see it god sees it and with your prayers you help give the grace for that soul to repent even when it looks like all hope is lost okay because at that stage they no longer react to external things oh how beyond comprehension is god's mercy although a person is at the point of death the merciful god gives the soul that interior vivid moment so that if the soul is willing it has the possibility of returning to god if you've heard my talk on the suicide of my grandmother you'll recognize that passage is the passage that changed my life that's the passage that says no matter how bad a soul appears to be god can step in and with your prayers you can make a difference this is saint therese confirming saint faustina confirming what i had written or for me confirmed what i wrote in my book that god is teaching us incredible and so this is what saint therese said she says i'm sure you will forgive this wretched man i shall believe that you have done so even if he does not confess or give any sign of repentance it goes to exactly what therese or faustina said in the diary for i have complete faith in the infinite mercy of jesus but i ask you for just one sign of his repentance to encourage me this prayer was answered daddy never allowed this is therese talking now daddy never allowed us to read any newspapers but i thought i was justified in looking don't you love this again that's like that's like faustina she wasn't supposed to do it but she justified it she snuck a look at the papers i was justified in looking at the stories about pran pronzini that was the murderer he had mounted the scaffold without confessing and was ready to thrust his head beneath the guillotine's blade when he suddenly turned seized the crucifix from the hands of the priest and kissed the sacred wounds three times amazing i had been given my sign and it was typical of the graces jesus has given to me to make me eager to pray even more for sinners so all of you listening to this why does god have you here today why does god have you listening today why is god have you in this shrine why does god have you at home watching this so that you will be encouraged by these stories of these two saints to pray even more for the conversion of sinners at the three o'clock hour we all think about the chaplet actually the number one thing father seraphim used to teach us that jesus said he wants at the three o'clock hour is the prayer for the conversion of sinners we pray the chaplet because it's meditating on his passion and it's by his passion that sinners are converted but the number one thing you want to cut right to the gist of it pray for the conversion of sinners and she said it was at the site guess what this just if you've been with us for these talks you will see how this seminary training is all flowing together because if you remember about a month ago i did a talk on the precious blood and i said all of our devotions could be boiled down to the big four the sacred heart of jesus the immaculate heart of mary divine mercy and what was the fourth one precious blood the precious blood and i did a whole talk on the precious blood explaining why it's one of the big four and saint faustina brought them all together now saint therese is bringing him all together and she says at this all this god's divine mercy comes together at the sight of the precious blood flowing from the wounds of jesus that my thirst for souls was born i gave the souls i gave souls the blood of jesus and offered them these purified souls that his thirst back to jesus that his thirst might be quenched this is chapter 5 from the story of a soul wow it's all tied together all these saturday talks all of our faith the saints they're teaching you consistently the same thing this is why this is not false matter this is true real stuff she said at one point she says some people think it's hard to pray for priests because the priests are so bad and she says i was surprised since i think all pre-souls are holy and then she said later however i met many saintly priests that month but i also found that in spite of being above the angels by their supreme dignity can you believe that the priest is above the angels by the by the grace of his ordination trust me i could be the first one to tell you it does not mean that we are holy we are broken we are just as much need in god's mercy but the priest is elevated above the angel by his office by what he was ordained to do that's why you guys are with us the marian priests their mission is to get you to heaven so she said i found that in spite of being above the angels by their supreme dignity they were nonetheless men and still subject to human weakness therefore they need my prayers thank you for all of you god bless you you know daily you're in my prayers i read every one of your letters your emails your voicemails your texts your online comments i read every one and we pray for you thank you for your prayers for us so she said if you are dealing with sin like the killer or weakness like the priests she is the saint to go to just like faustina she developed a whole way to help anyone in such a messed up condition to get to heaven even a hardened murderer or a broken priest so therese i'm listening tell me what you got and what she's got is called the little way this is the surest easiest quickest way as father mike gate used to talk about to get to heaven now let's what is the little way all right st faustina is right in line with all of us these two are connected like this so you can find the essence of this in the diary of st faustina but let me tell you specifically what say therese says now therese was really a great example because she too was broken she was very scrupulous she was very moody this is why i could not relate to saint therese because i was just like will she please stop crying please therese stop crying i it just became annoying for me as a novice and i didn't relate to it so anyway her sister listen how her sister described her i have to correct poor baby they called her poor baby who gets into frightful tantrums when she can't have her own way she rolls on the floor in despair believing all is lost sometimes she is so overcome she chokes she is a very high strong child now sure all of us can relate to that it was me yesterday at the airport we can all relate to this one day though she went so far as to wish her mother would die can you imagine a saint wishing her mother would die now there's hope for me because even i haven't done that so therese is a great example she recanted and was okay but then her mother did die and it sent therese into a tizzy her happy disposition disappeared she said quote i had been so lively and open now i became diffident and oversensitive crying if anyone even looked at me i was only happy if no one took notice of me again that's why i didn't connect to her i was like she's just an oversensitive crier and then father mark baron taught us what it's all about later in 1887 she asked saint leo the 13th if she could become a nun my favorite pope in the whole world theo the 13th together with therese and pope leo the 13th said do what the superiors decide you will enter if it is god's will and she refused to leave his feet she sat at his feet and screamed now if i'm the holy father i'm like she's not quite ready yet they had to get a swiss guard to come and to pick her up to carry her out of the room so her father is another example here he wrote about her she's very moody here so one time there's another story in her her writings that her father once said about christmas well fortunately this will be the last year we have to celebrate like this and she went into a tizzy she began to cry and celine her older sister who was a nun advised her not to go back downstairs because she was very upset hearing her father say this all of a sudden miraculously therese stopped crying she ran downstairs and joyfully got her gifts she said quote in an instant jesus content with my good will accomplished the work in me that i had not been able to do in 10 years instant grace asked for that gift so i realized she is a great example for the rest of us who are not capable of super virtue that's us she realized this about herself and that was what she said i'm a little soul totally incapable of it now we're getting to the little way here so i set it up by saying look how messed up she was now let's get in to what the little way is so she realized her messed up how she was messed up that she was just a little soul incapable of doing anything she understood then that it was on this very littleness that she must learn to ask for god's help now you're going to start to see this come together what is the little way in her her quest for holiness she believed that it was not necessary all of a sudden this is really powerful she began to see maybe not believe that it was not necessary to accomplish heroic acts or great deed she said basically i can't do this she couldn't to be holy and to express her love for god she said i got to find a new way i can't do this i can't fast for 40 days and 40 nights on bread and water i can't take freezing cold baths i can't do this i can't pray for 12 hours or in a row in the in the chapel i can't do this but i want to be a saint i want to be my heart cries lord but i'm going to get discouraged most of us do when we see the saints sometimes we get discouraged no get encouraged because saint therese has found a way for you to do it if you can't do 12 hours a day in the chapel you can't take freezing cold showers you can't fast for 40 days and 40 nights listen to what saint teresa has to say saint therese had the answer it's called the little way let's look at our next slide she wrote oh by the way i skipped a slide i'm sorry um wait a minute nine let me see here um did i mess up here i think i did let me go back because there was one slide yes let's show the slide on the little way the little way if brother mark can put it up is a picture of therese and this is the best little summary i found the little way this one simple sentence if you want to know all about the little way it's this one sentence this summarizes it our lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions or even at their difficulty as much as he looks at the love with which we do them that's what i just said about praying 100 rosaries or one with love that's the answer now let's look what saint faustina wrote let's go to our next slide love proves itself by deeds so how am i to show my love great deeds are forbidden me the only way i can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are are every little sacrifice every glance every word and the doing of the least little actions with love like the pen now she wanted to go to heaven by an entirely new way this is what she called the little way again see here's what's going on faustina's like lord i desire to get to heaven but i can't do these great things but she came to the realization that that desire was real god's not going to inspire desires in you if you can't do it in other words she said god would never put on my heart the desire to be a great saint if i couldn't somehow be a great saint so there's got to be a different way i can't do these huge penances and these huge works so she wanted to go to heaven by new way and she said listen to this i love it i wanted to find an elevator an elevator that would raise me to heaven the elevator she wrote would be the arms of jesus lifting her in her littleness so guess what the way to heaven is jesus picking her up in her arms and taking her there now listen to what she says the elevator would be the arms of jesus lifting me up in all my littleness in the evening of this life i shall appear before you jesus with empty hands i will be naked we got nothing other than love for i do not ask you lord to count my works she's basically saying i can't do these great things so this francisco preacher came to her and she was all upset she says is this is this is this bad and he said listen your faults do not cause god to be angry at you and she said quote if through weakness i should chance to fall may a glance from your eyes jesus straight away cleanse my soul and consume all my imperfections as fire transforms all things into itself wow so basically works are critically important works but what type of works are we talking about if you watched another one of our saturday talks the spiritual corporate works of mercy we did not say they are works of the law we said they are what works of love so even the little picking up of a pen can be what a work of love dr stackpole who works for us here at the shrine says you know what this is all about what is saint trust teaching us here divine mercy divine mercy he said divine mercy is so central to the spirituality of saint therese that she literally begins and ends her autobiography in praise of god's merciful love this is what father mike gately's book is 33 days of merciful love it's about therese she said jesus has made me feel that in obeying i would be pleasing to him besides i'm keeping to be doing only one thing i shall begin to sing what i must sing eternally what is that that therese said my whole spirituality is based in one song it comes from psalm 88 i sing of the mercies of god this all ties together even though i had on my conscience all the sins and weaknesses that i had committed i would go my heart broken with sorrow and throw myself into jesus arms for i know how much he loves the prodigal child who returns to him all right she said it is not because of god but in anticipation of his mercy that preserved her soul from mortal sin that she goes to him with confidence and love not because she's great but because she's little and that he loves me so saint therese's confidence and love and divine mercy is the key here it's the foundation of getting to heaven the little way is based on being like a little child jesus commands this in scripture now i've also done homilies you can find on youtube where i talk about the importance of being like a little child why is it important to be like a little child this ties to the little way because when a parent picks up a child and picks somebody up and lifts them up who are they a child you don't see me going to cameraman giuseppe and lifting him up i couldn't he's too big so god is telling us to be like a little child so that the arms like the elevator can lift you up this is the little way and saint therese is saying it's not in these great works but in the love by which we do them so our works are still important as long as they're done with love what she's basically saying is that it's not the number of them that matters it's the love by which you do works is still important but it's the work as simple as picking up a pen by the love with which you do it so even if it's one hail mary if you do nothing else you didn't get to pray today you were hassling with your spouse hassling with your child do nothing else go to bed and say one our father one hail mary and one glory be but do it with the most love you could do it hear the words say them slowly that's the love more powerful than an hour rattling a bunch of prayers that you're not engaged in this is the message so this is with a little way it's based on being like a child now father vernon johnson i found something that he wrote that i had in my seminary notes i want to pull these out for you because we talked about this he emphasizes in in his study of her spirituality is uh he did some work called spiritual childhood now listen to what he says he summarizes this wonderfully and this comes from father vernon johnson on a certain occasion during her life life in carmel saint therese was asked tell us what we must do to be as little children what do you mean by keeping little saint therese responded when we keep little we recognize our own nothingness and expect everything from god just as a little child expects everything from his father nothing worries us father johnson said in those words she reveals to us the foundation of divine mercy by looking at her heavenly father's love for her she learns a secret which is hidden from the wise and the prudent and revealed to only the childlike namely whereas in heaven the love of god goes out to those who are most like himself the saints our lady jesus on earth however his love goes out to those who are farthest off the weakest the outcast the most sinful that's the message of mercy loving the unlovable forgiving the unforgivable where sin abounds my mercy abounds the more she's bringing everything together like saint faustina to give you an understanding of divine mercy and what it's basically saying is the key to divine mercy is being little like a little child so that jesus can lift you up so basically god you're little enough that you depend on him for everything that you don't depend on yourself this is why jesus said when you go out don't carry a sackcloth an extra tunic and sandals and boots go with nothing because you are going to depend on your true heavenly father in this life yes we have to depend on responsibility of our jobs and paying our bills and all that but it has to be rooted on the dependence in god and ironically that's what the guy next to me in the airplane last night had to remind me as i was having the worst travel day of my life and what a wake-up call in preparation for this talk today is god not amazing amazing so let's keep going here let's go to our next slide in other words jesus revealed to saint therese the divine mercy you see on your screen the image of divine mercy now what have we taught is divine mercy look at that image look at the face look at jesus the divine mercy and if you're here in the shrine you can look at the image up to my upper left look at that image pope francis when he wrote his encyclical misericordia voltus basically said about the image of divine mercy is if you can capture the mercy of god the father and somehow encapsulate it somehow capture it you've got this image jesus is the face of the father's mercy if you can somehow put the mercy together jesus is the walking embodiment of that and so this is the mercy of god in other words the love revealed to therese in the person of our lord is merciful love from the earliest days she had a special knowledge of divine mercy and this is what father vernon says and one may say that this was the great light of her life and the grace property or mission no one it would seem was ever more attracted than she was to the mercy of god well she was before faustina they go hand in hand no one penetrated further its unfathomable secrets no one better understood the immensity of the help that human weakness can draw from it the mercy of god was the illuminating son of her soul s-u-n to her eyes that through light upon all the mystery of god in his relations with man all souls cannot be alike they must differ so that each divine perfection may receive a special honor in you you carry a aspect of god you don't think there's that many aspects of god well we know his omniscience he's all-knowing he's omnipotent he's all-powerful do you know that there's so many attributes of god that you personally reflect one of those attributes better than anybody else in the world i find that amazing but that's how infinite god's attributes are and his greatest attribute is mercy phenomenal so basically all souls uh he says to me he has manif um she has manifested i'm sorry faustina said to me sorry therese therese said to me he has manifested his infinite mercy and in this resplendent mirror i contemplate his other attributes this is what god does do you realize that therese is paving the way for faustina tres is paving the way for faustina it's no unbelievable that she only died eight years before faustina was born amazing so if she was made a doctor this was the reason she was made a doctor of the church she opened the door to understanding god's mercy and this is why faustinas needs to be the doctor right behind her because she faustina therese opened the door and faustina went through it father johnson says here saint therese tells us that all of god's perfections are expressions of his merciful love even his divine justice his justice takes account of our weakness and involuntary imperfections and in a sense his justice is smoothed over by mercy all right what does this mean what does it mean that god's mercy equals his justice all right if you mess up you are weak you are broken god's justice has to deal with it meaning he has to address it but how does he address it he says basically if you're broken and sinful then my justice must address it and how am i going to address it i'm going to address it by being merciful his mercy equals his justice in other words you've heard me say this expression before if there's two soldiers on the battlefield and one has a broken fingernail and one is hemorrhaging blood dying who has the biggest right to the medic the one most hemorrhaging blood on this earth jesus is saying it's not the well that need a physician it's not the righteous that need a physician it's the sick the sinful this is his mercy and his justice means he treats those with mercy it's kind of like the doctor it's justice that the doctor goes to the guy bleeding to death before he goes to the guy with a broken fingernail it's justice that the medic will go to the guy dying before he goes to the guy who just has a cut so jesus is saying it's justice that i go to the sinner before the righteous this is crazy this is something the jewish old testament would have totally not got and that's why they're struggling understanding the role of jesus but they will come it will come now he says basically tres then gives thanks uh listen to this therese then gives thanks for the opportunity she was given by her mother superior to offer herself is an oblation to god's merciful love this is what we are to do she concludes with an expression of complete trust and joy in the merciful care of jesus for her no matter what the future may bring this is amazing so let's go to the next slide and read what saint therese has to say saint therese says listen to her words i know that jesus cannot desire useless sufferings for us in other words jesus doesn't want you to suffer just to suffer and that he would not inspire the longings i feel unless he wanted to grant them what's the longing she feels to be a saint well she's saying he can't inspire me to be in saint if i can't be a saint because i can't do these great things so there's got to be another way the little way oh how sweet is the way of love the little way how i want to apply myself to doing the will of god always and with the greatest self-surrender this is amazing so what a beautiful message so finally although her oblation to god's merciful love did require great effort yes it did her little way of spiritual childhood would require a very humble spirit what's the key to being a child being humble knowing you can't do it on your own knowing that you must be helped saint therese was well aware of the fact that she could not live out such ideals by her own strength she knew they had to come from god now here's what she said let's go to our next slide ah lord this is therese talking i know you don't command the impossible you know better than i do my weakness and imperfection this is what we should be saying to god you know every very well that never would i be able to love my sisters as you love them she had trouble with her sisters you have trouble with your neighbors you have trouble with your in-laws trouble with your spouse trouble with your children having it hard time to love them listen to therese she says you know that never would i be able to love my sisters as you love them uh-oh unless you my jesus love them in me it is because you wanted to give me this grace that you made your new commandment to the apostles love each other as i have loved you that's in scripture he says the apostles love each other as i have loved you so she's clicking here she's getting it she's saying oh my gosh lord i see it now i'm not the one who can love them it's beyond me i want they drive me crazy but if you in me love them that's the answer oh how i love this new commandment since it gives me the assurance that your will is to love in me all those you command me to love so basically she's saying i wash my hands clean of this lord you got to come into me and love them through me i can't love them like that and he did basically god does the work not you you can't so you pray for the grace that god will you get frustrated that i pray and i pray and i still can't do it yeah pray and pray that not you do it god does it let's watch a quick video of saint teresa this whole message that is just three minutes it's only three minutes long but saint therese sums it up great in these quotes let's take a three-minute break and watch this video [Music] therese of lisia was born in france january 2nd 1873. at a very young age she entered religious life at 15 years old cloistered for less than 10 years then dying at age 24. many miracles were attributed to her intercession and 28 years later in 1925 she was canonized saint therese in 1997 she was given the designation doctor of the church she was the 33rd doctor of the church and the youngest one ever in the history of two thousand years of catholicism here are my top ten quotes of saints res eliza [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] okay so there's some great quotes to live by that summarize everything we've been talking about that saint therese has found this new little way it's a way that all of us can get to heaven there's no excuse for any of us not to make it to heaven if we don't learn and follow this little way again she's saying it has to be real or god wouldn't inspire it in me now why do we call her the little flower let's look at our next slide this is and you also have the saint therese chaplet which if i have time i'll get to and the little flower rosary but why do we call her the little flower all right dr robert stackpole again our theologian here so several times in her autobiography she refers to herself as the little flower now why he says she loved flowers all right and she cultivated them ever since she was a very little girl she saw that flowers needed constant care they needed to be nurtured in order to grow and blossom otherwise they would die you know i meant lou holtz yesterday i was in his home yesterday doing an interview for our ewtn show what an amazing man and he said you know every single thing in this world is either living or dying or is growing or dying a tree is either growing or it is dying a blade of grass is either growing or dying he said your soul is either growing or dying and so saint therese realized this with a flower she says it's a symbol of god's personal care for her soul that he wants to nurture it and your soul is either growing or dying let it be like a flower growing so why a little flower why do we say a little flower not just a flower why don't we just color the flower if paris uh uh paris is listening she's a big montreal one of our marion helpers he's a big montreal canadian fl uh canadian hockey fan and she'll know who the flower is gee lafleur one of my favorite players of all time he was called the flower why do we call saint therese the little flower all right as the youngest child in the martin household it could be i mean it's pretty common sense that she would be known as the little one being called the little one was probably natural to her so when the lord fashions his saints she basically said he utilizes listen to this who they are naturally to develop who they'll become supernaturally so saint terres is this little girl this little flower that's what she'll grow into supernaturally a great little flower now back to father vernon johnson he wrote about this in spiritual childhood and i find this fascinating he said god had a special purpose in mind in leading therese to understand the meaning of littleness now he's going to talk to a child aren't all children little you probably have a child like i was at four years old that was planning the week the family vacation so sometimes a child is not little a child wants to be an adult but the true little child follows his father and mother god our father mary our mother listen to what father johnson says unless you be converted and become as little children he's talking about jesus here you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven that's that's our lord's words unless you be converted and become like little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven jesus is confirming this message of therese and faustina our lord did not merely say that she must be converted and become a child he said she must become a little child now a child can have a certain to a certain extent an independent life of its own calling upon its parent only in moments of need i was like that i was independent i wanted to go down the road and play with my friends i didn't want my mom to drive me down there i wanted to take my own bike a little child cannot do this it has no life of its own it is completely dependent on its parent and so lives with perfect serenity and trust within the parents protection you are to be that way even though you are an adult god is your father mary is your mother for saint therese the word little which many would like to eliminate from her teaching is the key to everything she has made the fatherhood of god listen to this man he nailed it this father vernon johnson she has made the fatherhood of god live anew for thousands of the faithful by calling us back from being children with a more or less independent life of our own to become little children as our lord would have us little children with no independent life at all but dependent by but depending absolutely on our heavenly father just like a little child depends on the earthly father and mother and so calling us to a fresh realization of the fatherhood of god what is divine mercy jesus takes us to the father the face of the father's mercy and so calling us to a realization of the fatherhood of god therese enables us to move through life with serenity and confidence which is the prerogative of the childlike soul for she makes known to us one of those secrets which god has hid from the wise and the learned this is scripture and reveals only to little ones he didn't say to children he said to little ones it is in this sense that the present bishop of lizu is never weary of saying that saint therese has shed a new light on one of the oldest and most fundamental of catholic doctrines god is our father god is merciful that's it you acknowledge this you will get to heaven try to do it your own way you will not the heart of saint therese is the little way it's therefore the way of spiritual childhood the way of trust complete self-surrender he said therese knew that in almost every respect she was not a remarkable person i think you and i can say the same thing we're not the president we're not tom brady we're we're we're none of that we're not um bill gates thankfully on some sense but you see what i'm saying this is god picks the ordinary little person she was not an intellectual giant she did not have great natural talents she couldn't even sing that well hey there's hope for me she was likely to achieve nothing yet she had the desire she was not a great missionary preacher martyr or hero of the faith that we see in so many other saints she's a different kind of saint one for us yet she did long in her heart to be a saint as a result her underlying struggle was quote how can a simple ordinary person like me become one of jesus most beloved saints we heard how listen to this listen to this summary of her to become a saint is a question that most of us who follow christ want to have answered because like therese most of us are not destined for greatness we're not we're not destined to be some rich or mighty or king or mvp most of us are ordinary but that's who god's talking to here the high and the mighty and the rich they got their own way their own way is their way now that doesn't mean somebody can't still get to heaven like tom monaghan is very wealthy but he's done it and he's going to do it all right so saint therese found the answer now here's where i want to finish saint therese's answer to this dilemma was her little way now listen to her own words i'm going to read you quote from her autobiography instead of becoming discouraged i said to myself god can't inspire unrealizable desires i can then in spite of my littleness aspire to holiness it is impossible for me to grow up hey i can use that as an example right father you're like a little kid yeah it's impossible for me to grow up giving these talks talking about my faith living my faith i want to jump up and down i want to be like a little kid at christmas that's been given a gift called salvation please don't let me drop it i feel like that little kid jumping up in top on the rooftop screaming don't don't don't let me mess up lord and he's saying you won't as long as you sit in my arms that's what a little kid does and so we want to be like that in that sense we don't need to grow up now i'm not saying not to be not to be mature or something like that of course we have to be like that but we can't get ahead of ourselves this is what saint teresa is telling us she says basically it's impossible for me to grow up and so i must bear with myself such as i am with all my imperfections but i want to seek out a means of going to heaven by a little way a way that is very straight very short and totally new we are living now in an age of inventions we talked about the elevator and we are no longer have to take the trouble of climbing the stairs she's like i'm looking for a shortcut here i don't have the wind to be able to get up those stairs it's kind of funny you remember that that that runner in the boston marathon or new york marathon back in the 70s and he was running the marathon and all of a sudden they're waiting at the finish line and he comes around the corner everybody's cheering and celebrating he won the marathon he won the marathon they found out that he cut through he didn't run the whole marathon he cut through and he said later it was because he knew he couldn't run the whole way he couldn't run the whole race that's basically what saint faustina is saying or saint therese is saying that that i can't run this race but if you find a way that's too what does they say the shortest distance between two points is a straight line that's all she's finding she's giving you the straight line so basically she's saying we're living in this age of inventions we are no longer have to take the trouble climbing the stairs for in the homes of the rich an elevator has replaced the stairs i wanted to find an elevator which would raise me to heaven for i am too small to climb the rough stairways to perfection you ever see a baby trying to get up the stairs now a child does get up the stairs and sometimes falls and gets themselves in trouble a toddler but you ever see a two-month-old infant they can't what does the parent do the parent goes down picks the child up at the base of the stairs puts them in their arms and takes them to the top of the stairs saint therese is saying lord let me be like that two-month-old infant not the toddler is going to get in trouble but the little child and you pick me up in your arms and you carry me to the top in other words it doesn't depend on me and she says for i am too small to climb the rough stairs to perfection i searched them i searched then in the scriptures from some sign of this elevator so here's therese he said i have this idea i have this inspiration that jesus's arms of the elevator but i need to confirm it i i searched in the scriptures what did she find what did she find the object of my desire she says here i searched for some sign of this elevator the object of my desires and i read these words coming from the mouth of scripture quote whoever is a little one let him come to me it's proverbs 9 4. and so i succeeded therese said i felt i had found what i was looking for but wanting to know oh my god what you should do to the very little one who answered your call i continued my search and this is what i discovered as one whom a mother caresses so will i comfort you you shall be be carried at the breasts and upon the knees they shall caress you this is isaiah 66. basically saint faustin you know that shows the connection between saint faustina and saint therese here basically saint therese is saying in scripture she found where god said i will carry you at my breast ah never did words more tender and more melodious come to give joy to my soul the elevator which must raise me to heaven is your arms o jesus and for this i had no need to grow up but rather had to remain little and become this more and more that is trust trust is completely allowing yourself to be carried by another trust is letting yourself be directed by another trust is accepting the help somebody offers you a little infinite the baby the stairs has to accept the help its parent takes when he puts him in her arms and goes up to the top of the stairs this is the whole meaning of the little way oh my god you surpassed all my expectation i want only to sing your mercies all right so dr thatcher weighs on this to finish up he says faustina and therese and mother teresa understood the importance of all this this little way concept dramatized the truth that great love not great deeds is the essence of sanctity again we're not cancelling out the talks we did on the works of mercy the works of mercy you need to get to heaven but what are the works love not necessarily cleaning out the freezer at the soup kitchen and think that's going to buy your way into heaven that's a work it's not a work of love unless you do it with love then it matters if you're doing it just to get recognized it doesn't have merit she wrote in her memoirs that we should not be afraid of god even though we sin we should stumble to our feet and continue our advance to god never let your feeling of being hypocritical keep you from mass or prayer well i shouldn't go i'm in sin that's exactly why you should go the little flower wrote that she wanted to start extolling now the mercies of the lord which i shall go on doing for all eternity like faustina she realized that to become a saint one must suffer and that we entrust ourselves to god the father in his arms she said the mercy of god will be with us always all right last paragraph you're hanging in there god bless you i wanted to give the example of the rosary when she said i can't do great things she even referred to prayer any of you here ever have difficulty praying the rosary nah none of you no right any of you get distracted while praying the rosary nah none of you yes you do i do we all do listen to what she said about praying this is what she means by little you ever have trouble you ever get distracted do you ever mind wander you ever feel like you didn't really pray it you just said the words listen to saint therese but when alone and i am ashamed to admit it the recitation of the rosary is more difficult for me than wearing an instrument of penance i feel i have said the rosary so poorly i force myself in vain to meditate on the mysteries of the rosary this is a saint saying i force myself in vain to meditate on these mysteries i don't succeed in fixing my mind on them for a long time i was desolate about this lack of devotion which astonished me for i loved the blessed virgin mary so much that it should be easy for me to recite in her honor the prayers of the rosary which are pleasing to her sound familiar now i am less desolate i think that the queen of heaven since she is my mother must see my good will and she is satisfied with that in other words just the effort you're making is enough for god sometimes when my mind is in such uh distraction that it's impossible to draw forth one single thought to unite me with god i very slowly recite is what i've been telling you to do very slowly recite one our father one hail mary and one glory be then these prayers give me great delight they nourish my soul which more than if i had recited a hundred rosaries wow the blessed virgin shows me she is not displeased with me for she never fails to protect me as soon as i invoke her if some disturbance overtakes me some embarrassment i turn very quickly to her and as the most tender of mothers she always takes care of my interests amazing wow you know she is a great saint but you know people get confused like you know i wanted to mention i have to say this before we go that she's the patron saint of aviators and missions she never flew a plane she never went on a mission how crazy is the church well listen to this let's look at our next slide our next slide is saint therese her feast day is um i'm sorry a story of a soul we're showing story of the soul right brother mark so story of a soul is on the screen this is her autobiography now listen to what she says in here in her autobiography she talks about this little way and this autobiography the story of his soul had just come out and was very popular in world war one now world war one broke out and many soldiers listen to this on both sides were turning to saint therese so you got the germans german catholicism was still strong then he had the french both sides reporting seeing visions of a young nun it's like seeing padre pio with the bombers remember i did the talk on padre pio the pilots therese had not yet been canonized but they would see this young nun comforting wounded men no matter what side they were on interesting various nationalities didn't matter which side of the battlefield in response to this many soldiers began carrying pictures of therese with them into battle she became a special favorite of french pilots and this is where her intercession for aviators began that awesome you know she was never on a mission but she's a patron saint of missions why because she had the desire to do so this is why it's the desire not the perfection that god looks at what did i read just earlier god doesn't look at the number of our falls looks at the number of times we desire to get up you got to go to confession 100 times for the same sin come on i always tell people come to me for confession i don't care i have some beautiful employees that come to me regular for confession i said you know what i don't care if you have to come to this confessional every day i mean i do care but as long as you're trying and i said that before about a priest i met when i was struggling 25 years ago and i gave my confession and he said you know what you're a good person you're okay i said father did you hear my confession and he said listen listen this is the fact is that you're here the fact is that you care it's when you don't come that you got to start worrying and this is why we celebrate st therese let's look on the screen every october first i missed her because saint my saint francis talk went long yes her feast day was october 1st but we haven't forgotten her god bless and through the intercession of saint therese you know we want to say a couple quick things just throw a couple quick slides become a mirian helper share in these graces brother martin has showed if you haven't done it already be part of our miriam family share in our graces of our rosaries our prayers and our penances saying therese is a very powerful force for us join us at micprayers.org a mirian helper doesn't take but 10 seconds and costs nothing please join us and then finally my talks you can get on the dvd called explaining the faith at shopmercy.org or 800 800-462-7426 you can see that on your screen and then the last two are the books and i talk a lot about this these types of things on saturday mornings understanding divine mercy you can also get at shopmercy.org or at 1-800-4 marion or the after-suicide book if you're looking to help somebody who is suffering not just from suicide but from any suffering or loss and so with that may almighty god through the intercession of saint teresa of lazu bless you and keep you safe in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen and god bless you thank you you

Channel: Divine Mercy

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Keywords: St. Therese of Lisieux, who was St. Therese of Lisieux, what is St. Therese of Lisieux little Way, What is the little Way, Why sould we follow the little way, following the little way, most beloved saints, Catholic teaching on the little way, the quickest way to become a saint, the quickest way to get to heaven, what is the quickest way to become a saint, What is the quickest way to get to heaven, Explaining the Faith, fr. Chris Alar, Chris Alar, Catholic Teaching, Catholic

Id: w5Qjj9wn77w

Length: 86min 40sec (5200 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 09 2021