Thursday in the 26th Week of Ordinary Time, October 1, 2020

The Feast of St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Psalm 27:7-8a, 8b-9abc, 13-14

R. I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living. 

Hear, O Lord, the sound of my call; have pity on me, and answer me. Of you my heart speaks; you my glance seeks. 

Your presence, O Lord, I seek. Hide not your face from me; do not in anger repel your servant. You are my helper: cast me not off. 

I believe that I shall see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord with courage; be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord.

Although the readings for today’s Mass follow naturally according to their cycle, they are particularly apt for honoring St. Thérèse.  The Gospel, for instance, from Luke 10, 1-12, records how the Lord sent out his disciples to the towns and villages he intended to visit.  They act as missionaries, preparing the way for the Lord.  St. Thérèse had such dedication to prayer for the success of the Church’s missionaries that she is known as their patron.  She herself very much wanted to work as a missionary, but her place was in the Carmel in France, interceding for those faraway men and women who were spreading the Gospel.

The verses used for today’s Responsorial Psalm speak to us of her inner life, for Thérèse suffered from the vicious disease tuberculosis at a time when no treatment existed for it, and at the same time she suffered a severe trial of her soul.  One would not know it from reading her bright and cheerful Story of a Soul, which her sister the Carmel’s superior, ordered her to write to give her some work to do, but she endured agony at this time, as well as bouts of coughing up blood.  She felt the absence of God at this time and brutal temptations against the Faith.  Once, when she felt she could not last much longer under this temptation, she wrote out the Creed in her blood.  Despite the temptations, she persevered.  With the Psalmist she could say, “I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living”, even when she felt abandoned.  She did not waste her sufferings either.  In the days before she died she said to her superior, “I offer up these very great pains to obtain the light of faith for poor unbelievers, for all those who separate themselves from the Church’s beliefs.”

“Hear, O Lord, the sound of my call; have pity on me, and answer me. Of you my heart speaks; you my glance seeks.”  Her suffering was so intense that she said on more than one occasion that if she did not have faith, she would have ended her life.  She wrote at another time that those who care for the sick ought to keep medicine locked up safely because a patient undergoing fierce and prolonged pain is tempted to overdose with it.  We should keep her suffering in mind when we read her Story of a Soul and also the record of her various saying and little writings which was published later as Her Last Conversations.  

“Your presence, O Lord, I seek. Hide not your face from me; do not in anger repel your servant. You are my helper: cast me not off.”  Thérèse loved the Lord Jesus passionately, and had a particular devotion to the Holy Face, the image of his face imprinted on Veronica’s veil.  Her “little way” of serving the Lord was also a way of seeking him in all things.  The last words she spoke on earth, as she gazed at her crucifix, were, “Oh, I love him!  My God . . . I love you!”  

May we seek the presence of the Lord with as much zeal, and with as much success!