“Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it” (Mk 10:15).
Jesus is not asking us to be childish on our journey of faith, but that we be childlike in surrendering to and trusting in his love for us. As his disciples, he invites us to live our lives with humility and in service to others. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and her Little Way continue to have something important to teach us about remaining small and surrendering ourselves into the loving arms of God.
The Little Way is a path to holiness found in doing ordinary, small tasks with extraordinary love, focusing on humility, trust, and accepting imperfections as opportunities for God’s grace. In offering simple acts of kindness, bearing patiently with flaws, and trusting that God’s merciful love can transform weaknesses into strengths, the Little Way leads us to discover Jesus in every moment and in every person we encounter.
I have always been intrigued by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower, and often reflected on her life in my formative years. As a seminarian, I read her autobiography and, after ordination to the priesthood, I shared her story with parishioners and prayed for her intercession. But it was on February 1, 2021, when I received the telephone call informing me of my appointment as auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, that I began to turn to the Little Flower in a way I had never done prior. During terrible self-doubt, tremendous feelings of unworthiness, and numerous sleepless nights filled with fear and anxiety, I felt close to Thérèse, as if she was sent to assure me of God’s peace and his love for me. I began to resonate more emphatically with her faith journey and her call to remain small.
As ordination loomed closer, I realized I had to remain small so that God could become larger in my life. If God was choosing to use me, as unworthy and broken as I am, to be a bishop, I knew I had to trust that he would bring it to fulfillment. The words of Thérèse summarized well what I knew I had to do: “We must do all that lies in our power; we must give without counting the cost; we must constantly renounce ourselves. In one word, we must prove our love by all the good works we can perform; but, since all that we can do is very little, it is of the greatest importance that we put our confidence in him who alone sanctifies those works and that we recognize that we are indeed useless servants, hoping that the good Lord will give us through grace all that we desire.”
Saint Thérèse has something to say to all of us about the overwhelming expectations and the feelings of inadequacy we often experience in our lives. In the acceptance of our imperfections, weaknesses, poverty, and brokenness, Thérèse encourages us in childlike confidence to be assured that even the slightest and smallest step toward God is enough to bring down his love and mercy upon us. It is not about what we can accomplish; it is about what God can accomplish through us when we are willing to remain small and humble.
How life would be different for us if each day we chose to live the Little Way. Imagine allowing ourselves to focus on small acts of love and trusting that God will lead us to great things. By taking notice of the smallness of what and who is around us, we would live in such a way that we would have the energy and grace to listen to others more intently, to accept criticism more openly, and to trust that God will offer us everything we need to accomplish what is asked of us. We would have the serene confidence that he is in charge and can use us, as small and insignificant as we are, for what he wants us to accomplish in his Name.
As Saint Thérèse reminds us, holiness is available to all and it begins by doing small acts with great love, proving that sanctity is not about the size of the act but the depth of the love behind it: “Jesus has chosen to show me the only way which leads to the Divine Furnace of love; it is the way of childlike self-surrender; the way of a child who sleeps, afraid of nothing, in its father’s arms.”
Let us pray for the grace to remain small, to live our lives in humility, to serve others in Christ unconditionally, and to let God hold us tightly in his loving arms.
Most Reverend Gary W. Janak is the Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of San Antonio
Photo by OMELI PODCAST on Unsplash
