Saint Thérèse and Our Vocation to the Present Moment
Disclaimer: All articles published under this section are the opinions of the respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Cor Chronicle
Have you ever been intimidated by holiness? The examples of saints like Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena and Maximilian Kolbe can be inspiring, but they can also be discouraging. In the face of such heroism, the idea of living a holy life can seem like a large and unreachable task.
Over the last two years, however, I have grown closer to St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and she has quietly shown me her little way. I realized that holiness doesn’t have to be intimidating but instead consists of living out every moment of our lives in love for our Lord.
We don’t have access to the past or future moments of our lives, but only the present. Since holiness requires action, the present moment is where holiness takes place.
There is nothing we have which God has not given to us. Every detail of every moment–the people in it, the color of the sky, the way the edge of a page feels against your fingers, the breath that fills your lungs–is carefully designed by God in His omnipotence and love for us.
God loves us so much that He allowed His Son to die for our lives, so of course each detail of each moment He gives to us is lovingly crafted! These details could be pleasant like a butterfly that causes us to wonder at God’s creation, or they could be unpleasant and involve some suffering which will further unite us with Him.
It can be easy to give thanks to God for pleasant moments, but it is difficult to thank Him when one is suffering. In these cases, it is important to remember that God is a good and loving Father. What father would allow his child to be hurt when he could prevent it, unless it was the only way for the child to learn and to reach a good which far outweighs the pain?
Though suffering is intense, one can still choose to accept it as a part of the gift God is giving. Although His plans are hidden, we can trust that they are good and that He would not allow the hurt if it weren’t for the good to come.
I like to remember I am like an ant crawling along a ruler. I can only see the inch ahead of me, but God can see the entire ruler in one glance. Even if we, like the ant, can’t see what God is doing in our lives, we can trust that He sees the whole picture and is working everything for our good.
If each moment and everything that we have is a gift from God, then we have nothing to give back to Him to show our love except what He has first given to us. Yet, rather than give His gift back exactly as He gave it, we have the opportunity to offer Him something new and beautiful by living the moment for Him out of love.
This makes our lives a beautiful series of reciprocal giving and receiving. God gives us each moment out of love, then we receive it gratefully and offer it back to Him by living in love. He thus receives from us loving gifts of each moment.
Thinking about life in this way calls to mind the mutual giving and receiving which takes place in marriage and in the Mass.
In the sacrament of marriage, both spouses give themselves to the other and receive the gift of the other. In the Mass, we receive from God the gift of His Son’s sacrifice for us and offer back to Him that same sacrifice.
The gifts given and received in marriage and Mass are both gifts given and received in love. In the same way, love is what prompts God to give to us the gift of each moment and what prompts us to offer each moment back to Him by living it for Him.
As St. Thérèse said in her autobiography, “I understood that love comprises all vocations, that love is everything, that it embraces all times and places because it is eternal!”
When we live out each moment in love, we not only live out the universal vocation of love to which every Christian is called, but we do so in a little way, focusing on the gift of the little moment before us.
Christi Bales is a junior English major. She is a Blessed is She mentor and the publicity officer for Crusaders for Life.