The Little Way - Section 4 "Persistence in Prayer"

There are five core elements in St. Therese's "little way". This week we will touch on the fourth core element: "Persistence in Prayer as a Simple Raising of the Heart to God".  The first three elements are here and here and here.

In the introduction to this chapter, John Nelson says of Therese: "...her prayer life was often arid and dry and not, as one might surmise from her writings and sayings, full of consolation. This only made her more determined to persist in her simple raising of the heart to God, her many glances toward Heaven. Therese also greatly loved and valued - and was assisted by - community prayer...Each way of prayer, personal and community, supports and sustains the other. Together they make concrete the universal love and praise of God."

"Prayer unites the soul with God...prayer for me is simply a raising of the heart, a simple glance towards Heaven, an expression of love and gratitude in the midst of trial as well as in times of joy; in a word, it is something noble and supernatural expanding my so

ul, and uniting it to God..." 

"Meditate on the Gospel...during meditation I am sustained above all else by the Gospels. They supply my poor soul's every need, and they are always yielding up to me new lights and mysterious hidden meanings...I have never heard Him (Jesus) speak, and yet I know He is within my soul....He is guiding and inspiring me..."

"Love draws us to pray for others...If fire and iron were endowed with reason, and the iron were to say, 'Draw me,' surely this would prove that it wanted to be so identified with the fire as to share its very substance...I want Jesus so to draw me into the flames of His love, so as to make me one with Himself, that He may live and act in me. I feel that the more the fire of love inflames my heart...the more swiftly those who are around me will run 'in the sweet odor of the Beloved.'" 

"Throw straws on the fire of love...When we are in darkness, in dryness, there is no wood within our reach, but surely we are obliged at least to throw little bits of straw on the fire. Jesus is quite powerful enough to keep the fire going by Himself, yet He is glad when we add a little fuel...and then He throws a great deal of wood on the fire; we do not see it but we feel the strength of Love's heat... when I feel nothing...then is the moment to look for small occasions, nothings that give Jesus more pleasure than the empire of the world, more even than martyrdom...For example, a smile, a friendly word, when I would much prefer to say nothing at all or look bored, etc...It is not to make my crown, to gain merits, but to give pleasure to Jesus...When I find no occasions, at least I want to keep telling Him that I love Him; it's not difficult and it keeps the fire going..."
 
"Jesus supplies moment to moment...the fact that I often fall asleep during meditation, or while making my thanksgiving should appall me. Well, I am not appalled; I bear in mind that little children are just as pleasing to their parents asleep as awake; that doctors put their patients asleep while they perform operations; and that after all, 'the Lord knoweth our frame. He remembereth that we are but dust.' (Psalm 52:14)"

"Merely a sigh, a prayer of the heart...Matthew 9:37,38  Is Jesus not all-powerful?...Why then does Jesus say, 'Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that he send forth laborers'? Why? Surely because Jesus has so incomprehensible a love for us that He wants us to have a share with Him in the salvation of souls. He wants to do nothing without us. The Creator of the universe waits for the prayer of a poor little soul to save other souls redeemed like itself at the price of all His blood...Here are Jesus' words, '...ask Me for laborers and I shall send them, I await only a prayer, a sigh from your heart.'"