Abbey-Roads2

Shortly after 7PM little Therese died this very same evening in 1897. I was working tonight and forgot.

She died much like Our Lord, suffocating in great agony; the weeks and days leading up to her death, St. Therese suffered an ineffable darkness, “the trial of Faith”. Neither her own words, nor those of any other living person, can describe what it was like to share so intimately her Beloved’s death. Not even her sisters could comprehend it.

Therese is little, and yet great. Nevertheless she is always little…very, very little. I sometimes lament she has been declared a Doctor of the Church, resulting in many academics, intellectuals, and masters of theology and spirituality making a science of her “little way.” Many times they miss. They miss her “littleness” - her insignificance…

The only great theologian or mystic that I know of who best writes of her life is St. John of the Cross, the writer whose works Therese’s spirituality most perfectly embodies. John of the Cross was a little soul as well.

And the person who most closely lived Little Therese’s “little way” was even more little and insignificant that herself - Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

Happy feast day little God-Mother!

Did you ever have a recurring dream? Today’s reading from Mass seemed like that to me.

The responsorial psalm is the same as Thursday’s;

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.” Psalm 90

The first reading from Ecclesiastes speaks to man’s end…”Vanity of vanities!”

While our Lord warns his disciples, “Pay attention…the Son of Man is to be handed over to men.” Luke 9, 43.

The disciples “were afraid to ask him about this saying.” I believe this betrays a human fear of death, and therefore, something akin to a denial of death.

Few of us are prepared for death. We may think we are, yet I’m pretty certain we are afraid of it. I used to boast I had no fear of it. That is also a sort of denial…a vanity.

St. Joseph, patron of a happy death, pray for us now and at the hour of ours.