My Talk at Advent by Candlelight

Advent by Candlelight Talk

Hello! My name is Lucy.

So, St. Therese friended me! Just as someone would on Facebook or something like that. She kept popping up, made it clear she wanted to be my friend and I really started to like her. And she made her way into my Saint Posse!

It mainly started with reading the book, “Three Gifts of Therese of Lisieux”, by Patrick Ahern. He is a Bishop who has a great love, passion and devotion for St. Therese.

I do not feel deserving to be talking here because I struggle a lot with being lukewarm, as Revelation 3:16 says, “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” I’m wanting to serve God but not with my whole heart, not when it means giving up sinful things in my life. 

I was thinking about the question, “How do I adore Jesus?” I had the thought, it’s more about how He adores us. Now, I think both matters. But the divine always takes the initiative… that line I heard in a homily once.

He adores us.

In the book on St. Therese, it was talking about how at a certain point St. Therese was having all these wild desires, “follies”, as she called them. It says, “She longed to be a priest, a prophet, an apostle, a Doctor of the Church, a martyr. She wanted to experience all the martyrdoms of history and proclaim the Gospel the world over, from the beginning of human history until the end. No wonder she called these desires follies. She wanted to persuade everyone to love Jesus with the love that filled her own heart. In no way did she want these things for herself. She wanted them for His pleasure alone, because she realized how much He longs for our love. She knew that He thirsts for it, and that this is the ultimate meaning of His cry on the Cross: ‘I thirst!’ She yearned to slake His thirst, and she was distressed that so many who know Him seem unaware of the passion with which He loves them— and that so many do not even know of Him.”

I want to share a couple of ways you could adore Jesus. The first would be, following your passions. He puts them there for a reason and oftentimes He wants to you follow what you’re excited about- if it’s not sinful and you do it when and how He wants.

Also, developing silence of the heart. There was a quote I think I heard from Mother Teresa that said, “Before you speak, it is necessary for you listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart.” I’ve been doing this to an extent with my 10 minute listening prayer for years, and other quiet, listening time in other parts of my prayer throughout the day. It’s always mainly distraction though so I have to get better at this. I’ve heard something like, when we quiet our minds, then we can hear the divine speak.

I realized as I was thinking about this talk, that a big part of how I adore Jesus, is I keep coming back. I’ve been developing my relationship with Him for many years and it keeps evolving and growing. I love Him very much. I desire to do His will and ultimately get to Heaven and be a saint. I fall so often, but I keep coming back. I desire it. I desire our church and I desire Him. That want is good. I have to keep transforming that desire into action, which will become habits and then doing good will be a part of my character. 

Also none of this are you doing on your own. You cannot do anything without God. We need to pray for His help, along with the intersession and help from Our Lady, the angels, the saints and our guardian angel. 

We won’t always desire it though. A lot of times, I won’t want to do the right thing. But it’s not about feelings. The author of the St. Therese book says that when she entered the convent, she quickly lost the “sense of feeling” that once inspired her faith. When I don’t desire it, that’s where my lukewarm comes from.

Those follies of Therese were in a letter she wrote while on a retreat, to her sister Marie. According to the book, Marie loved hearing about the good things Therese was experiencing, but also felt like her own love for Jesus could not approach that of Therese. This is what the book gives as some excerpts from Therese’s response, “What pleases Him is that He sees me loving my littleness and my poverty, the blind hope that I have in His mercy… That is my only treasure… why would this treasure not be yours? Oh dear sister, I beg you, understand your little girl, understand that to love Jesus, to be His victim of love, the weaker one is, without desires or virtues, the more suited one is for the workings of this consuming and transforming Love… It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love.”

A lot of my struggle is me- not trying or wanting it enough. But there’s where I need to love my littleness and poverty, allow myself to be weak, without desires and virtues. That reminds me of St. Therese’s Little Way.

So do not be discouraged wherever you find yourself. Understand your little girl, understand that it’s okay to be weak and struggling and not feel very holy.

As St. Josemaria Escriva said, “The struggle is the sign for holiness. A saint is a sinner that keeps trying.”

I adore Jesus. He adores me. And He adores you. So much.

I hope that there was a message tonight from St. Therese or the Holy Spirit that will help you. And I hope it’s helped you remember that He adores you. 

What stops you from believing or allowing God’s love for you?

(December 3rd, 2024)