there's a lesso is fascinating in so many ways
hi my name's father mike schmitz and this is ascension presents so
i was recently reflecting on this young girl she had her feast day a couple days ago october 1st
her name is saint teresa of lesu the day before the feast of saint therese in the catholic church
we also have the feast of saint jerome so i think september 30th the st jerome doctor of the church
like one of the greatest minds the church has ever known i think saint augustine said about
who is one of the geniuses right saint augustine said about saint jerome that he if jerome doesn't
know it no one in the world knows it that kind of a thing so massive mind hugely influential
gave us the translation of the the bible from greek and hebrew into latin so that people could
understand it and read it um hear it and get it so good the next day is the feast of this
girl saint therese who um is also a doctor of the church but it boggles the mind in so many ways why
she's a doctor of the church because saint jerome makes sense saint jerome yeah translate the bible
teach all these things that you know in the in the fourth century that no one knew that people
were just trying to still trying to figure out about god and about jesus and all these things
that makes sense doctor of the church saint therese she entered the convention when she was
15 years old and she died when she was 24 years old she heard the nuns outside her window of where
she was dying saying that they were concerned because they didn't know what are we going to
write about her in her obituary because she's completely unremarkable she's not done anything
of note why is she a doctor of the church well i think it was pope paul vi when she was canonized
well she was canonized pope paul vi later on said that she rediscovered the heart of the gospel
that this girl this french girl who again entered into the convo when she was 15 died when she was
24 she rediscovered the heart the very heart of the gospel think about this like so what is that
at the time sanchez was growing up there were a couple things happening there there was the
the devastation of the french revolution right where these people this mob rose up
and basically said we're going to tear down the what's the establishment we're going to tear down
um anything everything from the royalty we're in tear down also the hierarchy of the church and
not only are they going to tear down the hierarchy they're also going to going to make it very very
difficult if you're simply a nun or if you're a priest and so there's this anti-religious movement
that was happening that had happened and had been growing around you know for for in france in
europe for a while that was really really strong this rise of this atheism and not just atheism
but a anti-religion atheism and anti-catholic atheism on the other hand you had the second
most successful heresy of all time that was raging raging raging throughout um europe it's the heresy
of jansonism and so gent what's gentinism a very very brief description of jansonism is this when
it comes down to um what does god want for you um harder equals holier that's if you want to kind of
sum up jansenism really really simply harder means holier if it's more difficult that's probably what
god wants you to do if it's the thing that you do not want to do and you'd never do as long as
you live that's probably what god wants you to do and so harder equals holier and so there is this
this strain if you were to say anti-religion right just this anti-christian anti-catholic
um strain of atheism but if you were faithful it seemed like the only option the option that seemed
to make the most sense the option that seemed i mean think about this why do i say it seem
to make the most sense because if you read the stories of saints what you read stories of are
people who are doing heroic things they're doing heroic fasts they're they're they're doing these
heroic penances they're doing these all the all of these heroic acts and you think well shoot it
seems like harder equals holier if you can do the heroic acts you better do these in a big big way
so jansenism kind of took took root in people who were taking god seriously and yet as you
would imagine it's completely deprived of joy it completely deprives the christian life of the
love and the fullness that jesus said he wanted us to have he said he wanted us to have fullness or
joy in our hearts that our joy would be complete he also came that we might have life and have life
to the full and yet jansenism would say yeah you can't trust any of those things that bring you joy
harder equals holier if you want to do it say no to it out of love for god but you always
have to say no to it out of love for god you know there's a place for penances in our lives in fact
every one of us should bring penances into our lives at least on fridays if nothing else but
that also there's room for pleasure in our lives like god made a world that's good god made a world
that is full of joys that's full of so many good things so life isn't just about penance and even
the christian life is not just about penance but according to jansenism harder equals holier
so here is therese she's caught between these two worlds of this anti-religious atheism
and this jansenism that says harder equals holier and what does she do well she looks at herself
and she says i am so small i'm so weak i mean honestly you go into the convent at 15 years old
you try to keep up with the big kids like you try to keep up with these other nuns who are
not only stronger they're also more mature they have this all these things going for
them therese saw all of her weaknesses on full display in the face of all these other
women who were like legitimately living holy lives not jazziness lives but holy lives and she was
tempted to this one thing she was tempted towards discouragement which i think is fascinating
let me sidebar on this one because that's actually kind of the point i wanted to talk about when it
came to tres when pursuing the lord or letting him pursue us when we're saying yes to the lord
it is so easy to look at other people and fall into the the trap of comparison it's so easy to
look at ourselves and find all of our weaknesses and our sins and our failings and fall into the
trap of discouragement so therese when she was 11 years old after first holy communion she made
three resolutions one of those resolutions when she was 11 years old was she resolved
to never allow herself to give in to discouragement to never allow herself
to give into the temptation towards discouragement and i think that's crazy i remember when i was my
first holy communion and i was not i did not have the wherewithal i did not have the self-knowledge
to know that oh you know what i'm gonna resolve to do anything i didn't i was just excited to receive
jesus in the eucharist i didn't even know that it would whole long another story but for therese to
be so aware of herself and aware of her potential woundedness that she made this resolution
it's resolved to never give in to the temptation towards discouragement is phenomenal and i
think it's what's out of many things what saved her because realizing her weakness
she realized okay now i know that god is real so i'm not going to fall into the atheist camp even
though later on in her life in her early 20s she was she was tempted in many ways she was
assailed by by difficulties and sailed by doubts but the other hand she realized that's not the
way that the chance in this way is not the way harter is not necessarily holier and especially
especially knowing herself she's like i can't even if it was the way i couldn't do it so what
do i do knowing myself and knowing my weakness knowing that i can never give in to discouragement
i'm going to do what i'm going to lean into the love of god i'm going to trust in the love of god
my brothers and sisters my friends here's one of the things that when we take god seriously
some of the things it's one of the the thing we i think we sometimes take least seriously or we
take seriously last is his love because we know ourselves we know that we need to be reformed
right we know we need to repent from sin we know we need to to change we need to take god seriously
but so often in the process of that we fail to take god's love seriously
we say we fail to take it seriously that god knows your weakness he knows my weakness
and he still loves you he still loves me that god knows your weakness he knows my weakness and he
still wants us to be great saints god wants you to be a great saint you say buddy i keep falling
okay god knows that already so don't get discouraged yeah but it keeps struggling
god knows that already so don't get discouraged yeah but it's sometimes so hard and i can't do
the hard thing okay sometimes that's true don't get discouraged rediscovery of the love of god
was that pope paul vi i think it was him who said about saint tres you discovered the heart of the
gospel which is god's love for you my brothers and sisters god loves you so much that there is no
room for discouragement god loves you so much that there's no room for this anti-religious atheism
and there's also no room for like i'm going to do it on my own and i'm going to do harder as holier
god loves you so much that maybe the hardest thing he's going to ever ask you to do
is trust in his love for you now obviously if we love god back what he's jesus said is if you love
me you'll keep my commandments that's real that's true but today in the face of whatever kind of
discouragement you might experience in the face of whatever kind of battles you may experience in
the face of whatever kind of whatever kind of of failing or falling or sinning you may experience
lean into the rediscovery of the heart of the gospel lean into the love of god for you
trust in it and don't wait sometimes it's the thing we least trust in and sometimes
it's the thing we last learned but today trust in the love of god for you that's
my god from all of us here at ascension presents my name is father mike god bless
you