The “little way” of trust and love

Thérèse had the desire to be a saint but quickly discovers that the way of the great saints; This " rough road to perfection is not for her. She will open a path that uses the ordinary means of the life of spiritual childhood: trust, abandonment, humility, simplicity, love in all the little things of everyday life. This little way is made for those who accept their littleness, their fragility, their poverty, sure that the recognition of their poverty attracts the abundance of God's infinite mercy. This path makes you grow in trust and love:

« I understand so well that only love can make us agreeable to the Good Lord that this love is the only good that I aspire to. Jesus likes to show me the only path that leads to this Divine furnace, this path is the abandonment of the little child who falls asleep without fear in the arms of his Father... "If someone is very small, let him come to me. “…Ah! if all weak and imperfect souls felt what the smallest of all souls feels, the soul of your little Thérèse, not a single one would despair of reaching the summit of the mountain of love, since Jesus does not ask great deeds, but only surrender and recognition. » (Ms B 1r°)

Thérèse will teach her little way to her novices. Sr. Marie de la Trinité wrote to a young Carmelite nun from Angers: “I believe that it is the first time since the world began that a saint has been canonized who has done nothing extraordinary: neither ecstasies, neither revelations nor mortifications which frighten little souls like ours. Her whole life can be summed up in this single word: she loved God in all the little ordinary actions of common life, accomplishing them with great fidelity. She always had a great serenity of soul in suffering as in enjoyment, because she took everything as coming from the Good God”. (Sister Marie de la Trinité, A novice of Saint Thérèse, Cerf).

Miscellany of the « small way »