The Little Way - Section 3 "Tranquil Trust"

(I was delighted to read in the compiler's opening remarks in this chapter that St. Therese did not share the common view of God as a severe judge requiring appeasement of His justice. "Many of Therese's companions...offered themselves and their penances to God's justice, seeking to join Christ and imitate Him in deflecting punishment from sinners...She (Therese) was led to understand and stress the intense love which Jesus shows forth for us from the Cross, through which He reveals the God who is our Father having all the love, patience, forbearance and yearnings of a good parent. God is not vengeful and overbearing; He has only love, He is Love, for His children...")

The third core element in Therese of Lisieux's "little way" is "Tranquil Trust in the Actions of God's Limitless Love." (The first two that we have touched on are "Joyful Humility as a Little Child of God", and "Bold Confidence in God's Mercy and Loving Kindness".)

"Only trust will bring love...Ah! do let us stay very far from all that is brilliant, let us love our littlenss, love to feel nothing, then we shall be poor in spirit, and Jesus will come for us, far off as we are, He will transform us in love's flames...Oh! how I wish I could make you realize what I mean!...It is trust, and nothing but trust, that must bring us to Love....Fear brings us only to Justice."

"He loves us even to folly...the one crime charged against Jesus by Herod was that He was mad!...and I agree with him!...Yes, it was folly to seek the poor little hearts of mortals to make them His thrones, He the King of Glory, who is throned above the Cherubim! He whose presence is mightier than the heavens can contain! Our Beloved was mad to come down to earth seeking sinners to make them His friends, His intimates, to make them like unto Himself..."

"To keep Jesus' word - that is the sole condition of our happiness, the proof of our love for Him. But what is this word?...It seems to me that Jesus' word is Himself, Jesus, the Word, the Word of God...We know then what the word is that we must keep. We do not, like Pilate, ask Jesus, 'What is truth?' We possess Truth, we keep Jesus in our hearts!"

"Our God, our heart's Guest...'We know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself asks for us with unspeakable groanings" (Romans 8:26). So all we have to do is deliver up our souls, abandon it to our great God. What does it matter then if it is without any exteriorly brilliant gifts, since within, the King of Kings stands brilliant in all His glory!"

"Love lives in us...How marvelously our spouse calls us! Think! We did not dare even to look at ourselves, so utterly dull and unadorned we felt: and Jesus calls us. He wants to gaze on us at leisure, but He is not alone, with Him come the other two Persons of the Blessed Trinity to take possession of our soul...Jesus promised it long ago when He was on the point of ascending to His Father and our Father. He said with tenderness unutterable: 'If anyone love Me, he will keep My word and My Father will love him and We will come to him and will make our abode with him.'"