Thérèse of Lisieux ~ Feast Day

There were ways to You she taught us,
Ways we never knew about or thought possible:
Like being a simple ball of no value, she said,
that You "could play with,
one You could throw on the ground
toss about, pierce, leave in a corner
or press to Your heart
just as it might please You".

from Therese's Writings

Source

St. Therese Taught us How to Pray ~

Thérèse of Lisieux

When she found out about a lady lavishing little attentions on her husband she wrote:

"Let it never be said that a woman in the world did more for her husband than I for my Beloved."

St. Francis of Assisi ~

He snatched the eternal fire and brought it down to us.

St. Francis of Assisi ~

Francis, the man who wanted to possess nothing . . . so that he could better love.

Feast of St. Augustine ~

"Too late have I come to love You, O beauty so ancient and so fresh; too late have I come to You", you said. 

And centuries later I learned to love Him early, Augustine, sitting there as a teenager, reading your words, in the seminary chapel.

All Saints Day ~ 2006

All Saints Day. I know a lot of them right around me. Like the mother who took her 40 year old son to the grave last week. The same mother who years ago lost one of her children when a bookshelf fell on top of him. That saddened woman who can never stop mourning. Quiet saints like she show us how to go on trusting in God. . . And maybe these too.

Pleasing to God

Reading a book about Francis of Assisi by Nikos Kazantzakis. He is portrayed as a merciless ascetic. Hammering down the body until it was ruined, rejecting every human pleasure. Is that the way for us to become saints? Francis knew a loving God. He must certainly have known he would be saved by that love, not by all such efforts of his own.