Memorial of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus
(Baruch 1:15-22; Luke 10:13-16)
In today’s gospel Jesus calls for the repentance of two towns. He wants Chorazin and Bethsaida to pay more
attention to his message of God’s love.
It is not that these places were notoriously bad. Jesus calls everyone, even saints, to
conversion. Even St. Therese of Lisieux has
a story of a change of heart and mind.
Therese pinpoints her conversion as occurring on Christmas when
she was thirteen years old. She was the
youngest of nine children with two sisters who had entered the Carmel before
her. She may have been pampered as a
child, but she also prayed devoutly. Coming
home from midnight Mass, her father complained about the festivities prepared
for her. Before her conversion, she
would have been crushed by the remark but no longer. She wrote: “Therese was different now; Jesus
had changed her heart.” Two years later
she joined her sisters at the local Carmel.
We should hear Jesus’ call to continual conversion and
implement it in our lives. Prayer will
help. If we experience a need to be less
compulsive and more attentive to what we are doing, we need to pray for self-control
and understanding. Of course, praying
does not obviate the need for effort. After
prayer we will find ourselves with more peace because we will be closer to the
Lord.
