REFLECTION/HOMILY FOR TUESDAY OF THE 26TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME (ST. THERESA OF THE CHILD JESUS)3RD OCTOBER 2023

REFLECTION/HOMILY FOR TUESDAY OF THE 26TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME (ST. THERESA OF THE CHILD JESUS)3RD OCTOBER 2023

Zec.8:20-23; Ps.87; Luke 9:51-56

God wants us to Trust Him

“Train up a child in the way s/he should go and s/he is old, s/he will not depart from it”. The truth of this saying is shown in the life of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus whose memorial we celebrate today. The parents Louis and Zelie Martin in their early days, wanted to join the religious life. Though they couldn’t, they channeled this noble desire to the proper upbringing of their children. As soon as they were born, they were taught the way of the Lord. It was so beautiful that God accepted five of their offspring as religious. Little Theresa was one of them.

St. Theresa’s notable virtues include: a childlike simplicity, utter humility, constant self-sacrifice and a boundless love of God and trust in him. She would always say: “From God, who is so mighty and so compassionate, one can never ask too much. One will obtain from him exactly in proportion to one’s reliance upon him”. Theresa teaches us to be confident in the Lord. Without trusting God, we cannot be his disciples.

This is the message Jesus communicates to his disciples in Luke 10:1-12 while sending them out. He commanded them as follows: “carry no purse, no bag, no sandals…”. These items signify sustenance. Jesus wants us to know that when we are concerned about doing his will, we will not be sustaining ourselves; He will. St. Theresa will say: “What offends Jesus, what wounds him to the heart, is lack of confidence”. God is not like the Egyptians who would us to make bricks without straws. When he sends us, he enables us.

Lack of confidence in God results from rating ones challenges over and above the power of God. The work of evangelization meets with so many challenges raging from poor receptivity of the gospel message to various attempts to ridicule the messenger. These myriad of challenges can paralysis ones inner drive to evangelize. The application of the principle of safety mechanism in evangelization has left many on the level of mediocrity. If we must rise above mediocrity, we need not undermine the challenges therein, rather, we need to be ever more confident that the grace of God will always be sufficient for us.

God does not send us on a mission without giving us himself; he does not betray us. And so, like St. Theresa, let us first be sure that we are working for God. When this is correctly established, every other thing will fall in line. Trust God to save you; trust God to provide for you; trust God to restore your loss.