The Little Way

I'm going to ask St. Therese to be my "guest blogger" today. Here are some snippets of her thoughts that I've come across in the last couple of days. I hope you find them as helpful as I do.

"We must do everything that is within us, give without counting the cost, practice the virtues at every opportunity, conquer ourselves all the time and prove our love by every sort of tenderness and loving attention. In a word we must carry out all the good works that lie within our powers -- out of love for God. But it is truly essential to put our whole trust in him who alone can sanctify our works, since he may even bring forth children of Abraham from the very stones. It is necessary for us, when we have done all we can to confess that we are unprofitable servants, while hoping that God in his grace will give us all that we need. That is the way of childhood."

"Being little means not attributing the virtues we practice to ourselves in the belief that we are capable of them, but recognising that the good God places this treasure in the hands of his little child for him to use when necessary, but the treasure remains God's always."

"You must never believe, when you don't practice virtue, that it is due to some natural cause like illness, time, or grief. You must draw a great lesson in humility from it, and take your place among the little souls, since you are able to practice virtue only in such a feeble manner. What is necessary for you now is not to practice heroic virtues but to acquire humility. For that, your victories must of necessity always be mixed with failures, so that you cannot take any pleasure in thinking about them."