Daily Gospel Reflection – Memorial of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus

Daily Gospel Reflection – Memorial of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus

Daily Gospel Reflection – Memorial of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus

Virgin and Doctor of the Church 

October 01, 2021 

Memorial of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus 

Gospel: Lk 10:13-16 

Jesus said to them, “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And as for you, Capernaum, ‘Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the netherworld.’ Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” 

Source: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 

Bishop Robert Barron

Friends, today is the Memorial of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus. The best introduction to Thérèse’s spirituality is a text that she wrote at the behest of Sr. Marie of the Sacred Heart, a sort of memoir of the retreat that she made in September 1896, just a year before her death. 

What she offers is a "science of love," a way of knowing and acting that is utterly conditioned by the love that Jesus has placed in her heart: "Jesus deigned to show me the road that leads to this Divine Furnace, and this road is the surrender of the little child who sleeps without fear in its Father’s arms." 

God, Thérèse concluded, is pleased to work with those who have become utterly docile to his direction, who have acknowledged their total dependence upon him, their readiness to receive gifts. Any sense that God’s love must be earned or that a relationship with him is a product of economic calculation is repugnant to a healthy spirituality: "Jesus does not demand great actions from us but simply surrender and gratitude." 

When this attitude is in place, anything and everything is possible. Following Thérèse, we can be pleasing to God and valuable to the Church in the humblest places and through the simplest acts. All we need to do is surrender, like a little child asleep in its Father’s arms.