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Today’s ✠Challoner Meditation
Sunday XX Post Pentecost: Missa “Omnia, quæ fecisti nobis” The lessons in the divine office during the whole month of October,
We are apt to complain that, seeking God, we do not find Him. “Detach your heart from all things,” St. Teresa used to say, “Seek God, and you will find him.” Otherwise, the things we love will be continually drawing us off, and will prevent us from finding God. The Lord one day said to our Saint: “Oh! how much would I willingly say to a great number of souls! But the world makes a great noise around their hearts, and in their ears so that My voice cannot be heard! Oh! if they would but separate themselves a little from the world!”
Humble hearts are the targets at which the arrows of Divine love are aimed. It was because God found the heart of Teresa most humble that it pleased Him to bestow upon her such a multitude of graces.
We are apt to complain that, seeking God, we do not find Him. “Detach your heart from all things,” St. Teresa used to say, “Seek God, and you will find him.” Otherwise, the things we love will be continually drawing us off, and will prevent us from finding God. The Lord one day said to our Saint: “Oh! how much would I willingly say to a great number of souls! But the world makes a great noise around their hearts, and in their ears so that My voice cannot be heard! Oh! if they would but separate themselves a little from the world!”
Ever since the time Jesus lovingly declared Teresa to be His Spouse, she remained so wrapt up in her Beloved that she could think of nothing but of pleasing Him. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my Beloved, that you tell him that I languish with love (Cant. v. 8).
The humility of St. Teresa was not the sort that some possess, who, although entertaining, in some instances, a lowly opinion of themselves, and expressing it also before others, yet cannot bear that others should publish their defects and subject them to contempt. No.
Humble hearts are the targets at which the arrows of Divine love are aimed. It was because God found the heart of Teresa most humble that it pleased Him to bestow upon her such a multitude of graces.
St. Teresa herself practised earnestly what she taught to others. When she was called to give herself wholly to God, she gave herself to Him without reserve, and with so strong a resolution, that to oblige herself to search out whatever might give the most pleasure to her Beloved, she went so far as to bind herself by that sublime vow, at which the Saints have been filled with astonishment, and which is styled by the sacred tribunal of the Rota, “a very difficult vow,” always to do what she understood to be the most perfect. Herein Teresa exhibits to us the courage and the resolution with which she aimed at the highest perfection to which a soul upon earth can attain, in order that she might please God to the utmost of her power.
An ardent desire for sanctity is a great means for becoming a saint. God does not bestow the abundance of His graces except on those souls who hunger for them. Our Saint says we must not set bounds to our desires, but must hope by God’s grace to reach the heights the Saints have reached.