So Many Saints, So Little Time!

“My God, I am so convinced that you keep watch over those who hope in you, and that we can want for nothing when we look for all in you, that I am resolved in the future to live free from every care and to turn all my anxieties over to you... I shall never lose my hope. I shall keep it to the last moment of my life; and at that moment all the demons in hell will strive to tear it from me… Others may look for happiness from their wealth or their talents; others may rest on the innocence of their life, or the severity of their penance, or the amount of their alms, or the fervour of their prayers. As for me, Lord, all my confidence is confidence itself. This confidence has never deceived anyone… I am sure, therefore, that I shall be eternally happy, since I firmly hope to be, and because it is from you, O God, that I hope for it."  -  St. Claude de la Colombiere

Somehow or another it slipped by me that Our Holy Father Pope Francis released a 4th encyclical last October. Dilexit Nos ("He loved us") is a remarkable document, and yet I was in danger not only of NOT remarking on it, but of not knowing it existed! Such is this fast flurry of exile we mistakenly call "life!"

Fortunately, I have friends, and some of them are almost as nuts as I am over St. Therese, the Little Flower. One of them, a diocesan missionary priest (he has the heart of a missionary and the incardination of a diocesan priest) and Secular Discalced Carmelite I've been lucky enough to know since what seems like our childhoods, sent me an email on December 3, feast of St. Francis Xavier, buddy of St. Ignatius, brilliant missionary, and even co-patron of missionaries with little St. Therese. (Yes, we usually say she is co-patron with him, but he's chivalrous and likes to give her top billing these days.)

The subject line of the email was: "The Heart of the Pope's New Encyclical" (to which I naturally wondered, "Hmmm.....what new encyclical?"), and the email contained an excerpt from said encyclical, from "the heart of it" - a lovely play on words since the encyclical is about Jesus' Sacred Heart, and the heart of His Heart (or at least the heart of the encyclical on His Heart) is none other than St. Therese! Well, she famously found her vocation in St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians and exclaimed, "I will be love in the heart of the Church!" so I guess we shouldn't be surprised!

The encyclical is wonderful, and the Holy Father does a spectacular job leading us through the testimonies of the saints on the love of Jesus for us. A highlight of development of devotion to Jesus' love as instantiated in the Sacred Heart is His revelations to St. Margaret Mary, and a highlight of that revelation is the support and commentary St. Claude de la Colombiere gave her and us.

Since St. Claude's feast on February 15th just whooshed by, I thought I'd start with his picture above and some of his words quoted by Pope Francis in the encyclical. St. Claude, pray for us to know and experience this Love beyond all love!

If I had my druthers, I'd quote more of St. Claude, but I think I'd rather send you to the whole encyclical so you can read at leisure and repent in haste! Ha, that's a joke, but I recently found Blessed Solanus Casey saying he'd need to keep converting until death (LIFE!) - so feel free to follow his example, as long as you keep his characteristic smile on your face too!

Here's the encyclical, and if you want to order it online, I found a wonderful paperback copy with a picture of the Sacred Heart on the front - it gets to you in 2 days! But for now, instant gratification:

DILEXIT NOS (HE LOVED US)

Meanwhile, another link I'm happy to share is for my favorite website: Catholic Saints Mobi, which gives ALL the saints of the day each day. I am making so many new friends! 

Today, for instance, I found Tommaso, a priest who is terrific, and Pepi (my new best friend - pictured above with his son on his shoulders), a Dominican priest and a Dominican nun who both drew all my admiration (and the priest had teachers and students and colleagues and friends also blesseds, I think), and then my own St. Josefa Naval Girbes, a secular Carmelite who lived in Spain and had a "school" of needlework, catechism, and all around loving guidance for young women of her parish. (As Carmelites, we celebrate her feast November 6, but February 24, today as I write, is the day she exited stage left for Heaven.)

Here is the link to them all - and you can navigate from there to other days to find more saints:

CATHOLIC SAINTS MOBI

AND THEN as if all this is not enough (I did warn you there were too many saints and not enough time), today is the anniversary of Therese's dear Celine making her vows and becoming Jesus' spouse.

I posted about that in 2020 HERE
but I want to add today that if you need help with anything, call on Celine!
Yes, yes, Therese is the proven and known quantity, but Celine might surprise you. She was (and is) such a good friend, and she liked to get things done! So if you need help (a) getting things done or (b) breaking the cycle and letting go of all the things you think you need to get done, well, she's pretty perfect for both ends of the spectrum!

And now I've got to run, but in case you're hoping for a glimpse into the heart of the encyclical on the Sacred Heart, here is what my good Padre sent, but I must add that there is MORE - way more - in the encyclical. No, I don't mean more from others, I mean EVEN MORE from Therese. This deserves another post, and if the Holy Spirit so blows, that may yet happen. If not, you've got plenty to read, and I'd start with the heart of the Heart!

*   *   *

From Pope Francis' Encyclical Letter Dilexit Nos
Our Holy Father learns from and teaches using the Wisdom of St. Therese of Lisieux...

as she explains the longings of Jesus' Sacred Heart . . . 

133. ...Saint Therese of the Child Jesus was influenced by the great renewal
of devotion that swept nineteenth-century France. Father Almire Pinchon, the
Spiritual Director of her family, was seen as a devoted apostle of the Sacred
Heart. One of her sisters took as her name in religion "Sister Marie of the Sacred
Heart" and the monastery that Therese entered was dedicated to the Sacred
Heart. Her devotion nonetheless took on certain distinctive traits with regard to
the customary piety of that age.

134. When Therese was fifteen, she could speak of Jesus as the One "Whose
Heart beats in unison with my own." Two years later, speaking of the Image of
Christ's Heart crowned with thorns, she wrote in a letter: "You know that I myself
do not see the Sacred Heart as everyone else. I think that the Heart of my
Spouse is mine alone, just as mine is His alone, and I speak to Him then in the
solitude of this delightful heart to Heart, while waiting to contemplate Him one
day face-to-Face."

135. In one of her poems, Therese voiced the meaning of her devotion, which
had more to do with friendship and assurance than with trust in her sacrifices:
I need a Heart burning with tenderness / Who will be my support forever / Who
loves everything in me, even my weakness / ... and Who never leaves me day or
night. I must have a God Who takes on my nature / And becomes my Brother /
and is able to suffer! Ah! I know well, all our righteousness / is worthless in Your
sight / So I, for my purgatory / Choose Your burning Love / O Heart of my God!

136. Perhaps the most important text for understanding the devotion of Therese
to the Heart of Christ is a letter she wrote three months before her death to her
friend Maurice Belliere. "When I see Mary Magdalene walking up before the
many guests, washing with her tears the feet of her adored Master, Whom she is
touching for the first time, I feel that her heart has understood the abysses of love
and mercy of the Heart of Jesus, and, sinner though she is, this Heart of Love
was disposed not only to pardon her but to lavish on her the blessings of His
Divine Intimacy, to lift her to the highest summits of contemplation. Ah! dear little
Brother, ever since I have been given the grace to understand also the love of
the Heart of Jesus, I admit that it has expelled all fear from my heart. The
remembrance of my faults humbles me, draws me never to depend on my
strength which is only weakness, but this remembrance speaks to me of mercy
and love even more." [see II COR 12:1-10]

138. To Sister Marie, who praised her generous love of God, prepared even to
embrace martyrdom, Therese responded at length in a letter that is one of the
great milestones in the history of spirituality. This page ought to be read a
thousand times over for its depth, clarity, and beauty. Therese helps her sister,
"Marie of the Sacred Heart", to avoid focusing this devotion on suffering, since
some had presented reparation primarily in terms of accumulating sacrifices and
good works. Therese, for her part, presents confidence as the greatest and best
offering pleasing to the Heart of Christ: "My desires of martyrdom are nothing;
they are not what give me the unlimited confidence that I feel in my heart. They
are, to tell the truth, the spiritual riches that render one unjust, when one rests in
them with complacence and one believes that they are something great... what
pleases Jesus is that He sees my loving my littleness and my poverty, the blind
hope that I have in His Mercy... That is my only treasure... If you want to feel joy,
to have an attraction for suffering, it is your consolation that you are seeking...
Understand that to be His victim of love, the weaker one is, without desires or
virtues, the more suited one is for the workings of this consuming and
transforming Love. Oh! How I would like to be able to make you understand what
I feel! ... It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love."

139. In many of her writings, Therese speaks of her struggle with forms of
spirituality which are overly focused on human effort, on individual merit, on
offering sacrifices and carrying out certain acts in order to "win heaven" [e.n.
Pelagianism & Jansenism] . For her, "merit does not consist in doing or giving
much, but rather in receiving." Let us read once again some of these deeply
meaningful texts where she emphasizes this and presents it as a simple and
rapid means of taking hold of the Lord "by His Heart."

140. To her sister Leonie she writes, "I assure you that God is much better than
you believe. He is content with a glance, a sigh of love... As for me, I find
perfection very easy to practice because I have understood it is a matter of taking
hold of Jesus by His heart... look at a little child who has just annoyed his
mother... If he comes to her, holding his little arms, smiling and saying, "Kiss me,
I will not do it again," will his mother be able not to press him to her hear tenderly
and forget his childish mischief? However, she knows her dear little one will do it
again on the next occasion, but this does not matter; if he takes her again by her
heart, he will not be punished."

141. So too, in a letter to Father Adolphe Roulland she writes, "My way is all
confidence and love. I do not understand souls who fear a Friend so tender. At
times, when I am reading certain spiritual treatises in which perfection is shown
through a thousand obstacles, surrounded by a crowd of illusions, my poor little
mind quickly tires; I close the learned book that is breaking my head and drying
up my heart, and I take up Holy Scripture. Then all seems luminous to me; a
single word uncovers for my soul infinite horizons, perfection seems simple to me.
I see that it is sufficient to recognize one's nothingness and to abandon oneself
like a child into God's Arms.

142. In yet another letter, she relates this to the love shown by a parent: "I do not
believe that the heart of a father could resist the filial confidence of his child,
whose sincerity and love he knows. He realizes, however, that more than once
his son will fall into the same faults, but he is prepared to pardon him always,
if his son always takes him by his heart." . . .

Draw me, O Love of Jesus, we will run!