The Thought of Saint Therese of Lisieux for today 24 June 2022

Let’s find out what the saint chosen for today wants to tell us, through his teaching that is always current and useful for our daily journey: “Some take it all in a way that they grieve as much as possible. For me it’s the opposite “

Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus, who during your earthly existence loved God above all things and offered yourself victim to his merciful love, help me to make precious all the moments of my life, transforming them into acts of true love.

Today we offer you a pearl taken from one of the many thoughts written by Saint Therese of Lisieux. Let us meditate on the words of this little great saint.

“I always see the good side of things. Some take everything in such a way as to grieve as much as possible. For me it is the opposite. If I have frank suffering, if the sky is so black that I don’t see clearings, well I make this my joy“.

Thought of the Saints: silence and prayer in difficulty

A few days after wearing the Carmelite habit, the father suffers a nasty hysterical crisis. Believing himself in a battlefield, he creates a dangerous situation forcibly tamed by the authorities. He was therefore interned at the Bon Sauveur hospital. Santa Teresa and the sisters, who have always venerated their father, were forced to endure criticism and comments because of that episode. But Teresa faced the difficult situation with silence, prayer and reading from the Bible.

The little way

It was precisely from reading the Bible that Teresa found the way to reach Jesus. “If anyone is little, let him come to me!” (Book of Proverbs). From this sentence we understand a lot of her spirituality. Saint Teresa fully understood that it is on this smallness that one can entrust oneself to ask for God’s help.

In fact, the Saint explains: «I want to seek the means of going to Heaven by a very straight path […] I’m too young to climb the hard ladder of perfection […]I don’t need to become big at all, on the contrary it needs to remain small, to become more and more [per innalzarmi fino al Padre]”. The Roman martyrology considered the spirituality of the Little Way of Saint Teresa her specific teaching to reach Christian perfection.

The Miracle of Santa Teresa in Gallipoli

On January 16, 1910 in Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites of Gallipoli an extraordinary event took place. The monastery was in debt at the time and was in danger of being closed. The then Prioress of the monastery, mother Carmela of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (aka Ida Piccinno) was bedridden due to pleurisy. At dawn that day she felt a strange sensation, as if someone were touching her, to wake her up.

A female voice told her: “Don’t worry, what I do is for your goodnot for your harm […]. God makes use of the beings of heaven as well as of those of the earth indifferently: behold, I bring you five hundred lire to meet the needs of your community ».

Saints: Saint Teresa presented herself as a “servant of God”

The voice belonged to Saint Teresa who in introducing herself said that she was not the Holy Mother (Teresa of Avila), but the servant of God, Sister Therese of Lisieux. Furthermore (another fundamental element for the Saint’s canonization process) Teresa said to her mother Carmela: “My way is safe, I was not mistaken in following it”; what she referred to was the Little Way.