St Therese of Lisieux - Catechesis with Pope Benedict XVI - Totus2us

Catechesis with Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict XVI: ".. Dear friends, we too, with St Therese of the Child Jesus, must be able to repeat to the Lord every day that we want to live of love for him and for others, to learn at the school of the saints to love in an authentic and total way. Therese is one of the Gospel's “little ones" who let themselves be led by God into the depths of his Mystery. A guide for everyone, above all for those who, in the People of God, carry out the ministry of theologians. With humility and charity, faith and hope, Therese entered continually into the heart of Sacred Scripture which contains the Mystery of Christ. And this reading of the Bible, nourished by the science of love, is not opposed to academic science. The science of the saints, in fact, of which she herself speaks in the last page of The Story of a Soul, is the highest science. “All the saints have understood and in a more particular way perhaps those who fill the universe with the radiance of evangelical doctrine. Was it not from prayer that the saints Paul, Augustine, John of the Cross, Thomas Aquinas, Francis, Dominic and so many other illustrious Friends of God have drawn this divine science that fascinates the greatest geniuses?” Inseparable from the Gospel, the Eucharist is for Therese the Sacrament of Divine Love that stoops to extremes so as to raise us to Him. In her last Letter, on a picture that showed the Child Jesus in the consecrated Host, the Saint wrote these simple words: “I cannot fear a God who, for me, made himself so little! […] I love Him! In fact, He is nothing but Love and Mercy!” In the Gospel, Therese discovered above all the Mercy of Jesus, to the point of affirming: “To me He has given his infinite Mercy, through it I contemplate and adore his other divine perfections! (..) Thus all appear to me radiant with Love, Justice itself (even more perhaps than the rest) seems to me clothed with Love”. She also expresses herself thus in the last lines of The Story of a Soul: “As soon as I look at the Holy Gospel, at once I breathe the fragrances of the life of Jesus and I know which way to run .. It is not to the first place that I rush, but to the last …. Yes I feel, even if I had on my conscience all the sins that can be committed, I would go, with my heart broken with repentance, to throw myself into the arms of Jesus, because I know how much he loves the prodigal son who returns to Him" “Trust and Love” are thus the final point of the tale of her life, two words that like beacons illuminated her whole pathway of holiness, so as to be able to guide others on the same “little way of trust and love”, of spiritual childhood. Trust like that of a child who abandons himself into the hands of God, inseparable from the strong, radical commitment of true love, which is the total gift of oneself/self, for ever, as the Saint said contemplating Mary: “To love is to give all, and to give oneself” (Because I love you, O Mary, P 54/22). Thus Therese indicates to us all that Christian life consists in fully living the grace of Baptism in the total gift of oneself to the Love of the Father, so as to live like Christ, in the fire of the Holy Spirit, His same love for everyone else. Thank you." (General Audience, 6 April 2011) Music: To the Ends of the Earth by Fr Rob Galea - ℗ 2011 Robert Galea - used with permission. Visit Totus2us.com for much more - dedicated to Our Lady, it was inspired by our holy fathers St John Paul II and Papa Benedict XVI. Totus Tuus was JPII's motto to Mary. Our Lady is also everything to us - Totus2us.