ber that we are His little children. He is always with us; He will never leave us. When we let this reality sink in, we will begin to have more confidence and trust in God. God has a plan for each and every one of us, and if we simply follow it as a child following the desires of our Father, we will have nothing to fear. It really is that simple. We complicate things and want to figure things out on our own; we worry about how we will accomplish all that we need to do. But if we go to God in prayer, ask for His guidance, and listen to whatever He tells us, He will gently tell us what we need to do and guide us where we need to go. So instead of taking your life and struggles into your own hands, surrender everything to God and trust that He will take care of you. Marian Devotion The little way of spiritual childhood of St. Thérèse also fits well with devotion to Mary, especially devotion to the Immaculate Conception. Mary is the exemplar of a spiritual child and led a most simple life of dependence on God. She heard the Word of God and kept it in her heart, trusting that God only wanted the best for her, His beloved daughter (see Lk 11:28). In the Immaculate Conception, Mary received the greatest mercy ever given to a mere human: preservation from original sin. She did nothing to merit this grace, receiving it as a free gift from her Father; she also remained faithful to it throughout her whole life, always remaining sinless and carrying out God’s will. She did not complicate her life by doing what she herself wanted to do, but always followed the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. She can teach us how to have the same childlike dependence on God. Saint Thérèse saw that the elevator to Heaven is the arms of Jesus, but Mary will also help lift us to Heaven. As spiritual children, we first rely on God as our Father, but Mary is also our beloved Mother given to us by God. Everything coming from God to us passes through her, and we return to God through her as well. When we run to her, she will take us in her arms, comfort us, and caress us (see Is 66:12). She will then bring us to Jesus and leave us in His loving embrace. During this 150th anniversary of the birth of St. Thérèse, and especially on her feast day, Oct. 1, may we meditate on spiritual childhood, take a step back from our busy lives, and live a little more simply as children of our Heavenly Father who will give us all we need. Let us look to St. Thérèse and Mary Immaculate as examples of spiritual children who can teach us how to love God and rely on Him for everything. This year marks the 150th anniversary of her birth, which makes this an especially perfect time to reflect on the remarkable spirituality that she taught during her short life: the way of spiritual childhood. The Little Way Saint Thérèse knew that she was too little to climb the “staircase of perfection,” as St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross had done before her. This staircase consists of heroic acts of virtue, severe penances, and great effort on the part of the individual. Few souls can climb this staircase, so St. Thérèse sought another way, what she called “a little way, a way that is very straight, very short, and totally new,” according to her spiritual memoir, Story of a Soul. She wanted to find an “elevator” that would take her straight to Heaven and bypass the staircase of perfection. She found that elevator after reading two Scripture passages from the Old Testament. The first is Proverbs 9:4: “Whoever is a little one let him come to me.” She realized that the way to God is to remain “little” (humble); she saw herself as “the little flower of Jesus,” giving glory to God but unnoticed among all the other flowers in the fields. But she also wanted to know what God would do when she came to Him as such. She read Isaiah 66:12-13: “As one whom a mother caresses, so will I comfort you; you shall be carried at the breasts, and upon the knees they shall caress you.” She rejoiced in having found her elevator to Heaven and wrote, “The elevator which must raise me to heaven is Your arms, O Jesus! And for this I had no need to grow up, but rather I had to remain little and become this more and more.” We can rejoice with St. Thérèse because we can all follow her little way to Heaven. Instead of “growing up” and trying to do everything on our own, we can reach Heaven much more quickly and easily by remaining humble and relying on Jesus for everything. When we approach Jesus as a little child, He will take us into His arms and lift us straight to Heaven. Spiritual Childhood But what does it really mean to be a spiritual child? Spiritual childhood is a disposition that we can develop no matter our chronological age. It consists mainly in having complete confidence and trust in God. This is very familiar to Marian Helpers, because trust is also central to the teachings of St. Faustina, but we can deepen our understanding of trust with the help of St. Thérèse. We need to look to God as our loving Father and remem- ‘The elevator which must raise me to heaven is Your arms, O Jesus!’ St. Thérèse wrote. ‘And for this I had no need to grow up, but rather I had to remain little and become this more and more.’ Marian Helper • Fall 2023 • Marian.org 25
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