BE CONTENT AND GIVE THANKS

Continuing my reflection on this prayer of Saint Therese of Liseaux: "Today may there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content and give thanks in all situations. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us."

Saint Therese says that we should be content and give thanks in all situations. Really? In all situations? How in the world are we to give thanks when our life is at sixes and sevens? How are we to give thanks when we are suffering and in pain, and it matters not whether the pain we are in is in of our own making or pain that came upon us because of something out of our control?

One has to wonder just what kind of world this young saint was living in when she wrote and prayed those words. It certainly does not seem like the world in which we are living where pain escapes no one, where trying to live a contented life does not come easily if it comes at all. Her world was one secluded away in a convent. How does she come off telling the rest of us to be content and give thanks in all situations when she never had to deal with what we have to endure?

Well, in her own way she had her share of pain and suffering. Just because it was not of the degree or kind that may be ours, pain is pain. Degree of difference is simply a matter of degree: it still hurts. What I think she is getting at is that when we are in pain, it is best to be content. The pain could be worse. Being content does not lessen the pain but it also does not make it worse. And then we are to give thanks that we have been given the grace and strength to endure the pain, however severe, however unjustified.

It is easy to be content and give thanks when all is well. Yet how often are we not and do we not? It is just as important to our spiritual lives to realize just how blessed we are when we are content as fat cats and then to give thanks for our many, many blessings. Instead, when we should be content because we are so blessed, we are not because we want more. Instead of giving thanks, we think we deserve more.

Even from her secluded life Saint Therese understood that it is sometimes easier to be content and give thanks when life is painful and not going well than when all is well and we are abundantly blessed. When all seems to be going well with us, it is often tempting to believe that we have earned the good life, that we have done something to deserve it. On the other hand, when pain shows up as it does for each and every one of us, we want to believe that it is somehow someone else’s fault – or at least think we have done nothing to deserve it. Maybe Saint Therese is on to something.

PASS ON THE LOVE

Continuing my reflection on this prayer of Saint Therese of Liseaux: "Today may there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content and give thanks in all situations. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us."

One of the gifts we have received as children of God is the ability to love and be loved. God’s love lives in us simply because we are children of God. It is part of who we are. Thus, when we summon up that love, however we express that love, miracles happen, an infinite possibility of miracles. 

However, if you are like me, there are many times in our lives, perhaps more often that we can imagine let alone admit to, that we feel unloved or not loved as much as we think we should be. It’s human nature. We all get down in the dumps for various and sundry reasons, some real and some foolish. Often when we get to that place, we moan to ourselves that “No one loves me” and cry in our proverbial beer. Even worse, many cry with a real glass in our hands believing that the buzz we get from the alcohol will actually make us somehow feel loved. It won’t.

But we are loved, totally and unconditionally, by our God. Yes, deep down we know that; but somehow knowing of God’s love just doesn’t do it. Yes, God loves me, we say to ourselves, trying to convince ourselves that we should feel lifted up, that we should rise from our doldrums and put a smile on our face and get on with life, happy once again. Only we can’t.

We need the touch of a human being, feel the love from another human being. That is not to denigrate God’s love for us. It is simply the truth. That is also not to say that in times when we feel most lost, most alone, even, it seems, most unloved, that God’s love will not give us the peace of mind and heart that we need at that time even when no one else is around. We’ve all been there, to that place, as well. We’ve felt that love, God’s love.

Yes, it is difficult to love others when we feel unloved. That’s one of the points I think St. Therese is making. No matter how unloved we feel or even believe we are, we are not. We are loved and are capable of loving others, even working miracles, even from the depths of our loneliness. Jesus, alone on the cross, feeling unloved, loved to the end, knowing he was loved and so could love and forgive in spite of it all.

For us, peace within comes from knowing we are loved, that we are lovable no matter how we feel and that we can and must pass on that love to others.

GIFTS RECEIVED

Continuing my reflection on this prayer of Saint Terese of Liseaux: "Today may there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content and give thanks in all situations. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us."

We are a gifted people both individually and collectively. That should go without saying but sometimes it needs to be said. The problem is not so much that we do not recognize that we have certain gifts. The problem is that we are wont to compare the gifts we have to those of others and always, or more often than not, in our own humble estimation, come up short.

The further truth is that in our honest humility we do recognize that others are indeed more gifted than we are when we compare the same gifts. Countless people sing better than I do, have more intelligence, are better athletes, are, well that list is long. What I often fail to acknowledge is that many of my gifts surpass the same gifts that others possess. All this is a fact of our human existence.

However, we are not to be in the business, if you will, of gifts comparison but in the living out to the best of our ability the gifts with which we have been blessed. On the one hand I am to sing as best I can, think with all my might and play the game with the best of my athletic skills however inferior any of these gifts might be. On the other, I am to do the very same with the gifts that I must, in all humility, acknowledge that I possess that are superior to others.

Again, we should have no issue with any of this. Yet we do. We use the excuse that others are more gifted than we and they are the ones who should be called upon to do what we have been asked to do. That excuse does not hold water, as they say. What we should do instead of making all kinds of invalid excuses is simply to do whatever is asked of us to the best of our ability. So much good in this world of ours gets left undone because of our lame excuses and our unwillingness to do what God has gifted us with the ability to do.

So, when we are called upon to use whatever gifts are needed at a particular moment in time, we can have peace within, peace of mind, knowing that we have been asked to lend a hand because we were exactly where we were supposed to be at that moment. And with faith in ourselves and in those who will help us accomplish what needs to be done, there is nothing that can prevent us together from accomplishing what at first might seem to be impossible but really is not.

INFINITE POSSIBILITIES

Continuing my reflection on this prayer of Saint Terese of Liseaux: "Today may there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content and give thanks in all situations. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us." 

Don Quixote could dream what everyone else believed to be impossible only because he had faith in himself. Maybe no one else had faith in him, but that was all right with Don Quixote. He did not need their faith to accomplish what he set out to accomplish. But he certainly needed faith in himself otherwise he would simply be chasing windmills, which is exactly what all those unbelievers told him he was doing.

 

We can do most anything if we have faith in ourselves, believe in ourselves. That is not always easy especially if we have failed more often than we would like to admit. However, when we think about those failures, we often find that there were the result of simply not having enough faith in ourselves to do what we set out to do. We were in a no-win situation because we believed we were in a no-win situation and not because the situation was not winnable.

Then there are those times when we have all the faith in the world in ourselves but know we cannot accomplish what we want to because we cannot do it all by ourselves. If we begin to believe that victory rests solely in our hands, defeat will almost always be the result. Our team will never win the game if each of us believes that s/he has to win it all by one’s lonesome self.

There are indeed infinite possibilities ahead of us, even where we are in the moment, if we believe in ourselves and believe in one another. We need this faith especially when we find ourselves in situations where we would rather not be, wondering why we are here and how we got here in the first place.

So much in this world and in our own lives that could be done, that needs to be done, is left undone because we do not have enough faith in ourselves or in others to get it done. We are afraid to dream dreams because we believe them to be impossible.

However, for these dream to become realities, this faith of ours, individually and collectively, has to come alive and be the controlling factor in our lives. And in order to accomplish what needs to be done, we first must be at peace within ourselves, trusting that this situation, this place, is exactly where we were meant to be at this moment in time. When this is our mindset, the possibilities, the dreams, are infinite.e did notHe d