1 October 2021 - Therese of Lisieux - Doctor of the Church - Friday of the 26th week in Ordinary Time - Baruch 1:15-22

The prophet Baruch lived in the 6th century before Christ.  He was a Jewish scribe.  He was also good friend of the prophet Jeremiah.  He also served as Jeremiah’s secretary.  According to the introduction in the first chapter of Baruch, this book was written in Babylon after the Jews were sent back to Jerusalem.  This book was to be read to the Jews at liturgical gatherings in Jerusalem.  In our first reading today, the Baruch sends a message from those in exile in Babylon to those who remained behind in Israel.  The message conveys how they were contrite for their sins during their exile, how they recognized the ways they and their leaders strayed from the faith to which God was calling them. The people recognized the ways that they rejected the word of God in their lives, the ways that they turned away from him even though he brought them through the dessert to the land of milk and honey.  The message of Baruch is to be a message of contrition and humility.  

As we hear from Baruch today, we celebrate the feast day of own of the most beloved saints of our Catholic faith: the Carmelite nun Therese of Lisieux, who died at the young of age of 24 in the year 1897 in her Carmelite monastery in the region of Normandy in France.  Even though she died at such of a young age, such is has be named to a select group of men and women of faith designated as Doctors of the Church, having been named so by Pope John Paul II, who had a very strong devotion to her.  Even though Therese did not write huge volumes of complicated theology like St Augustine or St Thomas Aquinas, her writings are very profound indeed and they have touched the souls of the faithful throughout the world.   As a reflection of Therese’s beautiful spirituality, here is a quote from a morning prayer that she wrote, consecrating her day to the Lord:  “O my God! I offer you all my actions of this day for the intentions and for the glory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I desire to sanctify every beat of my heart, my every thought, my simplest works, by uniting them to Its infinite merits; and I wish to make reparation for my sins by casting them into the furnace of Its Merciful Love.”  Even though Therese was a cloistered nun whose life was confined to her convent in rural France, Therese was named the co-patron saint of missionaries in 1927, along with the great Jesuit missionary St Francis Xavier. Even though Therese did not go overseas to the missions herself, she had a special love of the missions.  She prayed for the missions and prayed for missionaries, writing letters of support to them. This is a reminder to all of us who feel we can do nothing if we are not missionaries living in a far away land that it is the little things that keep God's kingdom growing. 

Therese mentioned the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the prayer that I quoted today.  This is very appropriate, as we will pray the litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus this morning as we recognize the first Friday devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus here at St Jude.  Let us unite our prayers today with the prayers of St Therese and with the Sacred Heart of our Lord.