Why Do We Venerate Relics -|- Irish Website - St Therese of Lisieux

St. Thérèse – Doctor of Hope and Mercy
Her message for us today.

In Ireland, and around the world, people are worried and feeling helpless as the economy collapses and hard-earned savings are lost. Trust in political, financial and religious institutions are at a low ebb and the options seem to be – despair or hope. St. Thérèse, the great Doctor of hope, comes when we need her most.

The true message of St. Thérèse is, perhaps, not always understood. She herself had to learn its depths and grow from being the one who was going to do great things for God into the one for whom God did great things.

The lesson is not easily learned. Carmel, which St. Teresa of Avila, loved to call ‘The little college of Christ’ is one place where it can be studied. In fact the Church acknowledges the teaching role of Carmel by making three of it saints ‘Doctors’  that is:
St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Thérèse of Lisieux.

Carmelite spirituality always starts with the Gift of God’s love, God loves us, totally and without conditions – Our response to this gift shapes our lives and in the end our death.  St. Thérèse holds a ‘teaching’ position not only in the ‘college of Carmel’ but in the whole Church.

What has she to teach us? - Total trust in Mercy and more trust! She leads us to the Gospel, which shows us this love ‘made flesh’ in Christ  and asks us to trust Him unconditionally.

We live in a world where good and evil vie for our attention within and without. Thérèse teaches us not to run away into a virtual ‘spiritual world’ but to stand our ground with hope in the ultimate victory of Christ.

She reminds us that in the end all we have to offer God, in life and in prayer, is our need of, and trust in, Mercy. It takes a lifetime to learn that this is our greatest ‘gift’ and EVERYONE has it! Her spirituality is not for an elite few but for ALL. The everyday reality of our human condition, with all it’s glory and woundedness, is what we bring to God in trust.

Thérèse longs to teach us that only the heart of a child can accept this reality, with serenity. We don’t have to ‘get it right’ before we come to God.

It is God alone who will make us, and all we bring Him, right. What a relief this is, it is so simple but not easy!

A good friend of ours likened Carmel to a ‘Laboratory of Love’ where God’s gift of Merciful Love, and our response to it, is in constant motion and tension.  A place where the ‘experiment’ of love takes precedence over all. The wonders of science are many, but scientific laboratories have provided no remedy for our failure to love. Prayer - the ‘lab’- ‘oratory’ of love is very different. Here everything – good and bad in our lives can come out openly and be transformed, if only we allow it.

The obstacles we put up between ourselves and God (and other people) can be dealt with and purified by Love as we learn our need to receive and pass on forgiveness, as Christ makes clear to us in the Our Father. Thérèse teaches us not to be ashamed of our spiritual ‘poverty’ but to rejoice that we are ‘little ones’ who come to God with hearts and hands empty of all illusions of a ‘goodness’ not our own; willing to accept His love in hope and pass it on with joy. From Mercy we come and to Him we go. Thérèse teaches us that life’s great task is to hope in this Love even in the darkest hour, because He is the Dawn from on High – and we trust Him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.