[Music] in around 1895 a young demure and simple nun living in a carmelite monastery in lesu france began writing at the behest of her biological sisters what she would call a story of her soul it would become her own magnificat she died in 1897 through a terrible bout of tuberculosis and yet her sisters inspired by what she wrote published her work and her devotion and fame began spreading throughout europe like wildfire she was beatified in 1923 canonized in 1925. pope pius xi said that she was the greatest saint of modern times i refer of course
to saint therese of lejeux one of the greatest saints whose work continues to this day and in this video we will discuss five lessons from her life [Music] the first lesson about therese begins less with therese than with the people who influenced her most her family in particular her mother and father zelly and louis martin zelly and louis before they married both aspire to the religious life and for various reasons realized that god would call them to a different vocation zelly determined if i would not be a religious then i will raise up many children
to heaven zelie and louis had nine children four of whom died tragically at a very young age but all of their daughters became religious zelly and louis were both artisans she was an award-winning lace maker and he was a professional watchmaker and their attention to detail was applied to how they raised their children and the catholic faith zelly and louis ordered their home around the local parish in particular daily mass at 5 30 every morning zelly and louis made sure their family maintained all of the fasts of the church and all of the feasts of
the church therese often recollects how her father would make frequent visits to the blessed sacrament and he would take her along with him and she would see him in prayer and she would say to herself that to look at my father praying must have been what it was like to see the saints pray and therese in many ways imitated her father in prayer louis was often told by his townspoke that he would be more profitable in his business if he only opened on sundays but louis always refused observing the sabbath every week therese recalls she
and her father would give alms to the poor who would come to their home almost every week from zelly and louie therese learned to trust in divine providence to accept all the joys and sorrows of this life and that our sacrifices however small that we do for the love of god or we're down to god's glory and for the benefit of others why do we have children the world has its answers but for catholics there's only one answer we have children to make saints to raise children up to the lord and the martin family shows
us how [Music] the second lesson about therese concerns her doctrine of the little way therese had a desire to be a saint a great saint and she believed that god would never have inspired her with this desire had he no intention of fulfilling it she trusted that god never commands the impossible so when jesus says be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect it must be attainable yet when therese looked within herself she saw too many imperfections and weaknesses to make this possible therese never dabbled in false humility she never exaggerated her weaknesses to be
more than what they were she was truly honest with herself therese compared herself to the great saints like a little grain of sand next to a mountain whose summit reaches into the clouds and her question became how am i going to get from here to there and therese by meditating upon the scriptures realized i need a shortcut and i need a lift and if i throw myself into the arms of jesus he will be my lift and he will raise me up to himself the little way is more than a set of practices and methods
it's more than just doing little things with great love it is a way of being it is a disposition of the heart it is acknowledging that on our own we are nothing and we can do nothing without christ therese believed that jesus was holiness itself he was sanctity itself and if she was going to be holy then what she needed to do she said was borrow the holiness and sanctity that belonged to christ alone if god wanted her to have faith hope and love then god was going to have to be faith hope and love
in her that yes we are called to be saints but we do not have the strength to become saints on our own instead we can throw ourselves into the arms of god our father like a little child to its parent and allow god and god's life to live in us lord you can love in me and through me that is the essence of a little way the third lesson about therese concerns her devotion to the virgin mary the devotion to the virgin mary was very much the soil in which the little flower grew developed and
received her nourishment consider her full name mary therese francois martin zelly and louis martin named all of their children after the virgin mary why because they wanted to ensure all their children were consecrated to the holy mother and it was through a statue of the virgin mary in therese's room where mary appeared and smiled upon her healing therese of a terrible illness from which she suffered for many weeks consider the convent and the order she joined the carmelites the first order dedicated to the virgin mary and therese herself said she would only want to be
a priest for one reason so she could preach a homily about the blessed virgin mary therese once mused that she thought herself richer than the virgin mary why because teresa says mary i have you to love but you do not have like me the blessed mother to love and the very last sentence therese wrote was o mary if i were queen of heaven and you were therese i would happily be therese to see you queen of heaven by the time therese died many people saw in therese a living expression of the virgin mary that therese
assumed a marian form in her life a confessor said to therese i declare before god and the holy angels that you have never committed a grave sin although therese was certainly not immaculately conceived she did intuit that god had by a special preservative grace prevented her from falling into mortal sin therese kept a copy of the gospels near her heart and like the virgin mother she treasured and pondered the lord's word and kept them in her heart and with prophetic insight therese saw that after her death many people would love her as if all generations
will call me blessed and therese understood heaven not as a place of repose or rest but as an expansion of her mission to be an advocate for the church for lost souls and like the blessed mother herself to be a refuge of sinners when she was a small girl her father gave her the nickname little queen he meant that as a term of endearment but his too was a prophetic insight by the time therese's life ended she really had become a little queen a mary in miniature [Music] the fourth lesson about therese concerns her love
and desire for jesus in the holy eucharist for therese there was no personal relationship with jesus apart from the blessed sacrament and from the earliest age she desired to receive her lord in holy communion one of the most beautiful passages in her autobiography concerns how she describes her first communion she said up until that point her relationship with jesus was face to face it was a glance at each other but when she received her lord in the blessed sacrament it was no longer face to face it was a fusion the two became one and it
was no longer therese who lived it was christ living in her what therese saw in the holy eucharist was perfect humility jesus descending under the guise of bread that he could not lower himself to us anymore therese wanted to receive jesus in the eucharist as often as possible her sister marie said that her greatest source of suffering at the carmelite convent consisted of its infrequent practice of holy communion therese would say to the hesitant it is not to remain in a golden cyborium that jesus comes down each day from heaven he wants to find another
heaven the heaven of our souls in which he takes delight what can we learn from therese's great desire for frequent communion that it is an encounter with christ himself when we receive the holy eucharist we receive a person and when we visit him in adoration we are quenching his thirst a thirst that she believed was a thirst for souls a thirst for our love therese understood jesus in the holy eucharist fills what is empty he feels what is impoverished in us and when he fills us he transforms our nothingness into holy fire [Music] the fifth
lesson about therese concerns her experiences of suffering and sacrifice therese's life was fraught with pain and loss and grief she lost her mother when she was only four years old she lost her older sisters to the carmelite convent she experienced tremendous illnesses throughout her life and suffered from chronic headaches she experienced periods of intense scrupulosity even near the end of her life she was tested against faith and the existence of god and of course one of her tremendous sorrows which she called a piercing of her heart concerned the loss of her father when she was
just 21 a man she called her king her beloved therese understood the sufferings of her life to be a part of god's providence and because she knew god was a good god she understood that god only wills our good but does permit the evil and the suffering for a greater good so she embraced them because she trusted that god would use them to draw her closer to him and to make her holier as a result but therese never sought suffering for its own sake instead she wanted to be so conformed to christ including christ on
his cross he suffered for love and so she wanted to suffer for love with him therese understood that love in this life feeds on sacrifices love needs to show its willingness to sink into the depths for the sake of others and so therese would do small sacrifices throughout the day every day she would break her will she would do these hidden acts of service for others they would have no idea who was doing them and she would gravitate to the most disagreeable personality in the convent as an expression of her own sacrifice to show forth
her love for god therese the last two years especially the last year of her life suffered from the debilities of tuberculosis she slowly began to asphyxiate and yet she saw in her suffering a greater conformity to christ on his cross who also suffered from asphyxiation there was a poignant moment as therese was dying when her sisters propped her up one sister on each side her arms outstretched her body limp barely breathing and it looked as if it was christ himself appearing through her but therese was willing to suffer this way if it meant that the
love with which she loved christ and the love with which she was willing to humiliate herself to descend as christ did will renown to the salvation of the world her last words were oh how i love him my god i love you [Music] what is the lesson that therese teaches us about suffering and sacrifice all of us have suffering and sorrow in our lives but can we trust as therese did that god only wills our good and whatever evils and sufferings and sorrows are happening to us are meant for a greater good we can as
christ did on his cross absorb them and absorb them in love for the salvation of other souls a family member or for sinners in general we are bringing glory to god because we are bringing his love into the world a love that was willing to sacrifice and suffer for us [Music] thank you for watching this video productions like this one are only possible because of the patrons that support this channel thank you for believing in this project may god bless you and may the virgin mary protect you [Music] you
