Page 31 - Michael 2024 January

loving Jesus and making him loved. As she wrote in
“Yes, I want to spend my hea-
ven in doing good on earth... “It
will be like a shower of roses”.
— Saint Therese de Lisieux
Church, and it is you, O my God, who have given me
this place; in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I
shall be Love. Thus I shall be everything, and thus my
dream will be realized”.
A shower of roses
The transformation that was taking place enabled
her to pass from a fervent desire for heaven to a con- theoretical and practical, doctrinal and pastoral, per-
stant, burning desire for the good of all, culminating
in her dream of continuing in heaven her mission of
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one of her last letters: “I really count on not remain-
ing inactive in heaven. My desire is to work still for
the Church and for souls”. And in those very days she
said, even more directly: “My heaven will be spent
on earth until the end of the world. Yes, I want to
spend my heaven in doing good on earth”.
In those words, Therese expressed her most as-
sured response to the singular gift that the Lord was
granting her, the remarkable light that God was shed-
ding upon her. In this way, she arrived at her ultim-
ate personal synthesis of the Gospel, one that began
with complete trust and ended in total abandonment
for the sake of others. She had no doubt about the
fruitfulness of that abandonment: “I think of all the
good that I would like to do after my death”. “God
would not have given me the desire of doing good on
earth after my death, if he didn’t will to realize it”. “It
will be like a shower of roses”.
She had come full circle. “C’est la confiance”. It
is trust that brings us to love and thus sets us free
from fear. It is trust that helps us to stop looking to
ourselves and enables us to put into God’s hands
what he alone can accomplish. Doing so provides
us with an immense source of love and energy for
seeking the good of our brothers and sisters. And so,
amid the suffering of her last days, Therese was able
to say: “ I count only on love”. In the end, only love
counts. Trust makes roses blossom and pours them
forth as an overflow of the superabundance of God’s
love. Let us ask, then, for such trust as a free and
precious gift of grace, so that the paths of the Gospel
may open up in our lives.
The centre of Christian morality is charity, as
our response to the unconditional love of the Trin-
ity. Consequently, “works of love directed towards
one’s neighbour are the most perfect manifestation
of the interior grace of the Spirit”. In the end, only
love counts.
The specific contribution that Therese offers us
as a saint and a Doctor of the Church is not analytical,
along the lines, for example, of Saint Thomas Aqui-
nas. Her contribution is more synthetic, for her genius
consists in leading us to what is central, essential and
indispensable. By her words and her personal ex-
perience she shows that, while it is true that all the
Church’s teachings and rules have their importance,
their value, their clarity, some are more urgent and
more foundational for the Christian life. That is where
Therese directed her eyes and her heart.
As theologians, moralists and spiritual writers,
as pastors and as believers, wherever we find our-
selves, we need constantly to appropriate this insight
of Therese and to draw from it consequences both
sonal and communal. We need boldness and interior
freedom to do so. u
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