Today is the feast day of Saint Therese of Lisieux. At first glance, the readings for mass today have nothing to do with who she was, and why she is a doctor of the church. However, a deeper reflection on the gospel, reveals the scriptural basis for Saint Therese’s “little way” of growing in holiness during her life.
In today’s gospel, Jesus and his disciples were on a journey to Jerusalem, and when they tried to stop at a Samaritan village, they discovered they weren’t welcome there.
This made James and John pretty upset with the village. They wanted to punish these people for rejecting Jesus Christ, the son of the living God. They didn’t recognize the Messiah in their midst, or even try to keep an open mind about him. This must have seemed like quite an insult to James and John.
When the disciples asked Jesus in their anger though, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” Jesus instead, turned and rebuked them for saying that!
Jesus didn’t want any harm to come to this town because they rejected him. He also made it clear to his disciples that they needed to control their anger, accept it, and go on down the road. Jesus would rather go where he was welcome, than to stir up any more negativity.
The last two verses of today’s gospel is a beautiful illustration of the way that Saint Therese of Lisieux lived out the gospel message in her life, and how she tried to imitate the life of Jesus. She is a doctor of the church for many reasons, but one of her “little ways” to grow in holiness, was because of how she handled negativity, criticism, rejection, and the poor opinions that other people had of her.
The more negativity or difficulties she encountered, the harder she tried to not react with more negativity. She made the conscious decision to choose to love these difficult people instead. This is exactly what Jesus did in today’s gospel. He chose not to react to negativity with more negativity, and just go on down the road instead.
Saint Therese was also really good at “getting over it” when someone hurt her feelings, treated her disrespectfully, or thought less of her than she deserved. She learned to “go on down the road” and forget about the incident entirely. Even the crankiest nuns in her monastery were treated with so much love and kindness, that after her death – they thought she liked them the best!
There are so many lessons Saint Therese could teach us, by how she lived the gospel message in her life. But every saint interpreted and lived out the gospel message in their own unique way too.
There is no such thing as cookie cutter saints. They are as beautiful and unique as precious gems, in how they imitated Jesus and lived the gospel in their lives. There is no single path to holiness.
Sainthood is within our reach too, by how we interpret the words in sacred scripture and live them out in our lives as well. We can never go wrong, if we look to Jesus’s life as a good example for own.
