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| Little Saint Thérèse - Old Postcard |
We here touch the vital point of Spiritual Childhood. What the heart is to the body in the physical life, love is to the soul in the spiritual life. It is the heart which vivifies all the members and all the organs of the body; it is love which from the supernatural point of (P.70) view vivifies all the powers and all the faculties of the soul. The spiritual life, thus understood, is truly a life of holy childhood, modeled on that of little children, in whom nothing is of any worth, nothing operates but love. The child is love only; he is all love. And is it not that which gives him so many charms in the eyes of those who cannot resist the attraction of childlike smile?
And it is that, too, which in St. Little Thérèse has so gently ravished the Heart of the Good God that He has become, as it were, incapable of resisting her desires and her prayers. She herself was persuaded of this, and it was certainly her intention to convince us of it, when a few days before her death, she said:
"I want to give my little way to souls. I want to make known to them the simple means that have so perfectly succeeded for me, to tell them that there is but one only thing to do here below: to cast down before Jesus the flowers of little sacrifices, to win Him by caresses! That is how I have won Him, and that is why I shall be so well received."
"My griefs, my joys, my sacrifices small―Behold my flowers, my caresses! All!"
(P.71) Coming tomorrow!
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