OUT OF CHAOS
This year marks the centenary year of the beatification of St Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.
For 100 years, she has been loved by millions . This causes many to wonder why a young cloistered nun would have such a profound impact on the hearts and lives of these millions from all over the world. We may ask, what does her life and our own have in common? How could she, who lived a secluded life within her safe cloistered walls, how could she possibly have suffered the trials and sorrows and sufferings as we do in the chaos of our daily secular lives?
Therese was the target of bullying behaviour, gossip, exclusions, humiliations, all within those convent walls. These were some of her emotional trials. At the same time, she suffered physically from the extreme cold with little or no warmth offered in a threadbare habit and in thin bed covers in the colds of winter. She was deprived of nutritious food. In the final 2 years of her young life, she suffered excruciating pain from pulmonary tuberculosis, pulmonary haemoptysis. This advanced into intestinal gangrene.
Therese responded to all of these sufferings by welcoming them, making them integral to her spirituality. In her spiritual maturity, they became the context of her sanctity. She united all of her extreme sufferings with Christ's Passion so that she might join Him, becoming His victim of Love to win the souls for whom He thirsted and suffered and died.
Many of us who endure spiritual, emotional and physical trials, all concurrently, may feel as though our days are subject to a compressed and dominating chaos. To confront the lie that ties us into our chaos, a little 5 Day Retreat will be posted online in this blog, one reflection each day, beginning September 26.
Our Retreat will conclude on September 30, the day before the feast Day of Therese. We will unite in prayer, all across the world, to give her honor. Her wisdom will guide us as Spirit Lord transforms our wounds and our sufferings making them the Context of our Holiness and so to lead us …
OUT OF CHAOS.