Jesus
journey to the cross had a lot of ups and downs, a lot of twists and turns, on
his way to the cross. Many
times, the towns and villages recognized him for his great miracles, for his
healings and his proclamation of God’s Kingdom. Today,
we hear how a Samaritan village would not welcome him. Our own
journey’s can take us to unexpected places, can be full of welcomes and
rejections. The
saint we celebrate today is Therese of Lisieux. I
remember once asking some of the prisoners to whom I ministered who their
favorite saint was. Without a blink of
the eye, they answered Therese of Lisieux. And they are not alone. Since she was canonized in 1925, she has been
recognized by the faithful as one of the most popular saints of the modern
era. Therese
died at the age of 24 of tuberculosis back in 1897, a cloistered Carmelite nun
who entered the convent at the age of 15. The
prisoners I spoke of and many of the faithful relate to “the Little Way” that
she describes in her autobiography, a humble, everyday approach to faith in
which we see God’s presence in the ordinary moments of our daily lives, in both
the joys and the sorrows that we experience each day. The
response in the psalm today is: “God is with us.” Some people recognized the way God was with
Jesus in a special way, some did not. Therese
saw God with her both in good times and in bad. May we
lift up our day to the Lord, no matter where we are on our journey.
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