Blessed Teresa of Calcutta is globally known for her stunning paradox. Once she said: “I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love”. Strange but true.

Real love forgives. And the more it is hurt the more it forgives generously and abundantly. Today I would like to share with you another cute piece of paradox from this woman of diminutive stature but certainly of a giant spiritual calibre. Oops … another contradiction!

On my pretty coffee mug I received as a gift three weeks ago there is printed this famous quote from the holy Albanian Nun: “Your life may change only when you always remember that God loves you, not for doing great things, but for doing small things with great love”. What a splendid demonstration of God’s holiness.

Sometimes I catch myself wanting to accomplish great things. Having my name written on the Guinness Book of Records is an ideal my proud nature finds difficult to turn down or to easily ignore, to say the least! Yet when I recently examined the little way of Saint Therese of Lisieux I soon realized how mistaken I was.

Contrary to what many may think the saints are not those who led sinless lives. Rather they were brave enough to afford God’s loving presence guiding and shaping their lives according to his merciful design. Saint Therese was ambitious too. She desired that her vocation in the church would have a heroic flavour. The Discalced Carmelite humbly confesses in her ‘Story of a Soul’: “I feel within me other vocations. I feel the vocation of the warrior, the priest, the apostle, the doctor, the martyr. Finally, I feel the need and the desire of carrying out the most heroic deeds for You [Jesus]”.

Even though she squarely admitted her littleness Therese wanted to enlighten souls as did the Prophets and the Doctors." On the example of the great apostles the Lisieux Carmelite was eager to "travel the whole earth to preach Your name," to "preach the Gospel on all the five continents simultaneously and even to the remote isles." She even nourished the subsequent noble dream: “I will be a missionary, not for a few years only, but from the beginning of creation until the consummation of the ages.” Therese was ready to give her own life for Jesus! “I would shed my blood for You [Jesus] even to the very last
drop.” She fathomed to be another Joan of Arc!

Like most of us who feel spiritually disturbed because they lead quiet lives among friends, family as well as co-workers, Therese started losing her inner peace when she noticed the huge discrepancy that existed between her ideals and the simple way of life she was living at the monastery. She asked with distress: “[Is] God not asking something more of me than my poor little action and desires. Is He content with me?"

Her consoling answer came when she meditated Saint Paul’s thirteenth chapter of his First letter to the Corinthians. “’Yet strive after the better gifts, and I point out to you a yet more excellent way.’ And the Apostle explains how all the most perfect gifts are nothing without Love. That Charity is the excellent way that leads most surely to God.” But what is charity? In his encyclical ‘Deus Caritas Est’ Pope Benedict XVI defines charity as “the simple response to immediate needs and specific situations: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for and healing the sick, visiting those in prison, etc” (§ 31). Such a kind of love is within everyone’s reach. What am I waiting for to do much by doing little?

Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap