i      Since Holy Scripture is inspired by God it is unique. Although Sacred Apostolic Tradition (oral) and the Magisterium (teaching office) of the Church share in the charism of infallibility with Sacred Scripture, only Scripture is inspired, God-breathed.  Therefore, it can be said that the authors of Sacred Scripture (human ones) are the normative theologians and Scripture has the primacy in theology. 

     All three, Sacred Scripture, Apostolic Tradition and the Magisterium are inter-dependent as explained by the Second Vatican Council in their dogmatic constitution on the Word of God known as Dei Verbum, and are equally necessary, because like the analogy of the three-legged stool, one cannot stand without the others.  As St. Paul assures us, "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16).  Sacred Tradition is the faithful "handing on" (paradosis, Gr.) of what Christ and the Apostles through the Holy Spirit taught. It was from Tradition (capital T, not human tradition, small t) and with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, that the canon of Scripture was defined for the first time at the synod of Rome in 382 A.D. and subsequently at synods in Hippo (393, 397) and finally by the Council of Trent after the Protestant revolution. 

     The Magisterium is tasked with authentically interpreting both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.  Yves Cardinal Congar once described Tradition as the interpretation of Scripture.  Thus, the teaching office of the Church infallibly carries out authentic interpretation of the Word of God in the deposit of faith (i.e. Scripture and Tradition), but as the Second Vatican Council stressed it is not above the Word of God, but rather it is the servant of the Word.  So all three (Scripture, Tradition, Magisterium) are mutually interdependent and equally necessary.  St. Paul notes that "the household of God which is the Church of the living God" is "the pillar and bulkwark [foundation] of truth" (1 Timothy 3: 15).  The Church faithfully preserved the Tradition and produced the Scriptures.  The Magisterium was created by Christ himself when He made St. Peter the rock, assuring him, "I will build my Church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven . . . (Matthew 16:18-19).

     The theological principle of divine accommodation (synkatabsis Gr.) can be seen in both the Old and the New Testaments.  It functions mostly "negatively" in the Old Testament as deuterosis (literally second law) wherein God stoops down to our level (synkatabsis) to lift us up to his.  So, for example, St. John Chrysostom, an Early Church Father who is considered the "father of divine accommodation," speaks of the Law (Torah) as deuterosis, an accommodation to raise sinful Israel up from her sins.  All those who wrote on this, from Chrysostom to St. Irenaeus, St. Augustine and later the rabbi Maimonides, all saw animal sacrifice which Israel practiced as an accommodation or condescension to get Israel to give up false gods.  The paternal purpose is what we look for to see how God stoops down as a Father to get Israel to give up their secretly practiced polytheism and prepare for their redemption in Christ.  

     St. John Chrysostom defined synkatabsis in his work on The Incomprehensible Nature of God. He considered marriage a divine accommodation, believing that virginity was too great a burden for sinful humanity to bear. In the New Testament the Incarnation of Christ is the ultimate synkatasis wherein God becomes man without ceasing to be God. St. Augustine wrote of God's plan of salvation (okonomia Gr.) in seven stages (dipensatio).  Here was the "Divine Physican" at work in salvation history always acting in a paternal manner to give the patient (humanity) what is needed in the way of an accommodation to aid us achieving our eternal destiny to be with God.  An example from the Old Testament is the appearance of God to Moses and Isaiah.  Chrysostom said there were synkatasis and indeed, St. Paul said the Law was given to Moses by an angel.  In the New Testament the prayer of Christ before raising Lazarus from the dead was also seen as a condescension or accommodation to Martha and the crowd of bystanders--as well as for the readers of Scripture.

 m    So in understanding salvation history and why God orders animal sacrifice, circumcision, or even Sabbath law, we look to his paternal purpose always and then come to understand what at first glance seems difficult to grasp.  Likewise, in bringing greater understanding to dogmatic theology we must look to the wisdom and paternal love of the Divine Physician to better understand God's dogma.  Like Augustine our attitude should be humble as we say, "Credo ut intelligam"(I believe so that I may understand).  God's blesses our faith, our belief and with it comes increased understanding.  The mysteries of God and the challenges of His Word are best understood by those who place all of their trust in Him and His Word.  That takes great humility and is the road to sainthood.

      Pope Pius XI wrote this encyclical letter in 1930 when for the first time a Christian Church approved, under limited circumstances, the use of artificial birth control.  This was done at the 1930 Lambeth conference of the Anglican Church. 

The Comstock laws (1873) were passed by essentially Protestant legislatures and lasted until 1930 Lambeth Conference.  This was legislation designed to outlaw obscene literature in the mails, including contraceptives, abortifacients and sexually explicit literature.  Anglicans were  the first Christians to approve of contraception under some circumstances.  In the United States, Margaret Sanger founded the National Birth Control League in 1914.  She generated pressures that were influential in removing the legal, religious and social barriers to contraception and then, abortion.  Other churches and society in general came to embrace contraception and even abortion, in some cases, over time.  Pope Pius XI wrote his encyclical to uphold moral truths about chaste wedlock.

Even the Washington Post newspaper was reacted negatively to the news of the Lambeth conference in one editorial which stated:  Carried to its logical conclusion, the committee's report, if carried into effect, would sound the death knell of marriage as a holy institution by establishing degrading practices which would encourage indiscriminate immorality. The suggestion that the use of legalized contraceptives would be 'careful and restrained' is preposterous (Washington Post Commentary, 1931).

In the light of current American contraceptive marriage with its 50% divorce rate, it is profitable to reflect upon some of the truths reiterated in this encyclical letter.  It is also important to note that Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the teaching of Casti Connubii in Humanae vitae (On Human Life) in 1968.  Before we do that, a quiz question for you: •"What theologian declared in the 1500’s that birth control was the murder of future persons?" "What priest in the 1700’s declared that taking 'preventative measures' was unnatural and would destroy the souls of those who practiced it?" "Who declared that birth control was sodomy?“  The answers are respectively, John Calvin, John Wesley, and Martin Luther.  On the other hand, these same Protestant leaders sought to remove the sacramental status of the institution of marriage. 

Pius XI wrote:  “. . . a great number of men, forgetful of that divine work of redemption, either entirely ignore or shamelessly deny the great sanctity of Christian wedlock, or relying on the false principles of a new and utterly perverse morality, too often trample it under foot.”  He sought to vindicate the divine institution of marriage, its sacramental dignity and its perpetual stability as a lifelong union of a man and a woman.  This was, in fact, restored by Christ and cannot be subject to any human decrees. When questioned by the Pharisees about divorce, Jesus answered:

Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?i 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder. (Mt. 19:3-6)

As Pius XI wrote: “From God comes the very institution of marriage, the ends for which it was instituted, the laws that govern it, the blessings that flow from it; through generous surrender of his own person made to another for the whole span of life . . .” (para. 9)

He quotes St. Augustine: “are all the blessings of matrimony on account of which matrimony itself is a blessing; (1) offspring [children]; (2) conjugal faith; (3) sacrament.”

By conjugal faith it is provided that there should be no carnal intercourse outside the marriage bond with another man or woman; with regard to offspring, that children should be begotten of love, tenderly cared for and educated in a religious atmosphere; finally, in its sacramental aspect that the marriage bond should not be broken and that a husband or wife, if separated, should not be joined to another even for the sake of offspring. This we regard as the law of marriage” (para. 10)

Conjugal faith, called by St. Augustine, “faith of chastity” blooms more freely, beautifully and nobly when it is rooted in the soil of the love of husband and wife, which pervades all the duties of married life and holds pride of place in Christian marriage.

There should be a mutual molding of husband and wife, this determined effort to perfect each other, can in a very real sense, be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony (not restricting it to the conception and education of children), but more widely as a blessing of life as a whole & the mutual interchange and sharing thereof (para. 24).

St. Augustine refers to “the order of love.”  This order includes both the primacy of the husband with regard to the wife and children, the ready subjection of the wife and her willing obedience, which St. Paul puts in these words, “Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ is the head of the Church” (Ephesians 5: 23-24).

This does not imply domination, but rather self-donation because we remember that Christ gave His very life for love of us.  St. Pope John Paul II emphasizes in his great work on Theology of the Body, that St. Paul does not intend to say that the husband is the “master” of the wife and that the interpersonal covenant proper to marriage is a contract of domination by the husband over the wife. (TOB 89:3, p. 473).  St. Paul underscored the challenging role of the husband noting: 

​Husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word . . . (Ephesians 5:25-26)

Husband and wife are in fact, “subject to one another,” mutually subordinated to one another.  The source of this reciprocal submission lies in Christian pietas (fear of God) and its expression is love.  (TOB 89:3, p. 473, Waldstein translation). 

“If the husband is the head of the domestic body, then the wife is the heart; and as the first holds the primacy of authority, so the second can and ought to claim the primacy of love” (Pope Pius XI in Casti Connubi, para. 27 [On Christian Marriage]).  

St. Augustine calls Christian marriage the sacrament by which is denoted the indissolubility of the bond and the raising and hallowing of the contract by Christ himself, whereby He made it an efficacious sign of grace” (para. 31)

Both husband and wife possess a guarantee of the endurance of this stability in marriage [indissolubility], seen in the generous yielding of their person & the intimate fellowship of their hearts since true love never falls away.  A strong bulwark is in defense of a loyal chastity against incitements to infidelity, should any be encountered from within or without (such as illness or adversity of old age, etc.)

Importantly, he noted: "Since matrimonial consent among the faithful was constituted by Christ as a sign of grace, the sacramental nature is so intimately bound up with Christian wedlock that there can be no true marriage between baptized persons “without it being by that very fact a sacrament.” (para. 39).

Moreover, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: "The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life.“ (CCC 1603)

However, men and women do not reap the full fruit of the Sacrament unless they cooperate with grace; otherwise the grace of matrimony will remain for the most part an unused talent hidden in the field unless they develop the seeds of grace they have received (para 41).  

Our culture glorifies sex [not genuine love] and thereby tramples upon the beauty and virtues of married love, which can be extra-ordinarily grace-filled.  The sanctity of marriage is trampled upon and derided; divorce, adultery, all the basest vices either are extolled or are at least depicted in such colors as they appear to be free of all reproach and infamy.  Sinful ideas are coated with the veneer of science in books claiming to emancipate modern society from the old-fashioned and immature “opinions” of the ancients, relegating Christian marriage to garbage heap.

Armed with these false ideas, sinners concoct new forms of union from temporary or experimental marriage, to more modern sins such as same-sex marriage (legalized by the Supreme Court in the U.S.), reducing us to standards held by pagans in ancient times (para. 52). As the Catechism notes: "Homosexual unions contradict nature. They imitate but they do not complement and that is key. The same sex inclination is objectively disordered" (CCC #2358). 

That does not mean that persons with a homosexual orientation cannot be outstanding citizens or saintly persons. Every human being regardless of orientation is called to live a life of personal holiness. While the inclination is disordered, only the activity itself is sinful.

“The conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious” (para54).

St. Augustine wrote, “Intercourse even with one’s legitimate wife is unlawful and wicked where the conception of the offspring is prevented.”  Remember Onan being struck dead by God--see Genesis 38?

The Catholic Church, by the grace of God, is “standing erect in the midst of moral ruin which surrounds her,” upholds God’s moral law with regard to marriage.  God forbids all acts which are intrinsically evil.  God’s laws with regard to marriage should be kept.  But remember, “God does not ask the impossible, but by His commands, instructs you to do what you are able, to pray for what you are not able that He may help you” (para. 61).

​Frequent the Sacraments and pray constantly for God’s graces to help you overcome sinful tendencies and temptations!  You will find much more richness and truth in this encyclical online if you desire to read it,  Click Here

May the Lord richly bless you.  The answers are respectively John Calvin, John Wesley, and Martin Luther

Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-80) from her childhood felt called by God to virginity and an austere life.  She practiced great austerities even as the youngest of 25 children and consecrated her virginity to Christ as a child.  Even her own family did not understand her and persecuted her because of the visions she saw.  She vowed to give her life to God when she was only seven years old. Her family gave her the nickname Euphrosyne, which means "joy" in Greek.  At the age of eighteen years old she became a Dominican sister and spent the next three years in seclusion drawing near to God with prayer and fasting.

​She epitomizes the age because of her love for the sick and the poor in this period of great suffering in Europe with the plagues.  She frequently had terrible physical pain and lived for long periods on no food except for the Blessed Sacrament. In 1370 she had visions of the souls suffering in Purgatory, Hell and Heaven.  It was at that time God told her she must leave her cell and enter into public life.

She naturally gathered disciples around her in spiritual fellowship for the love of God. "To the servant of God, every place is the right place, and every time is the right time." (Letter T328) She displayed "superhuman heroism" during the plague year 1374 and won a devoted following. She travelled in northern and central Italy, advocating reform of the clergy and repentance for all, along with her followers. In 375 she used her influence to dissuade the cities of Pisa and Lucca away from the anti-papal league.

​She was a mystic, who received the stigmata (the wounds of Christ in her own flesh) in 1375.  This sharing in the suffering of Christ is given to some great Saints.  For more information on this mystery go to:  http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14294b.htm  However, because of her humility, she asked that there not be visible marks on her body and God answered this prayer.  She suffered greatly from these wounds but people could not comment on them or make a fuss over her because they were not visible.

Following instructions she received from Jesus, she appealed to Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome in 1376 at a time when the papacy was under the thumb of the French King at Avignon, going there in person to meet with him.  In her correspondence she asked the Pope to reform the clergy and the administration of the Papal States. Since she was known as a prophetess, the Pope did as she advised.  He reentered Rome in January 1377.  She was also a peacemaker and was sent to Florence which was at war with the Papal States at the time.  She was almost martyred for her efforts.
 
When the Great Schism broke out in 1377 she was called to Rome by Pope Urban VI, whose cause she espoused against several anti-popes during the last two years of her life.  She served the poor and the destitute in Rome after being called there. She was canonized in 1461.
 
One of her greatest works was “Dialogues”, a deeply powerful, mystical and Christ centered treatise on divine Providence. It treats the whole of the spiritual life of man in a series of colloquies between the eternal Father and the soul of Catherine herself.  She wrote, “Merit consists in the virtue of love alone, flavored with the light of true discretion without which the soul is worth nothing."

In 1970 she was declared a Doctor of the Church for works like: “The Book of the Divine Doctrine” and “Dialogues.”  She was clearly raised up by God for this period of struggle in the Church. She epitomizes what God was doing to try to save the Church.  She had incredible gifts but perhaps her greatest was that she retained her humility and modeled her sanctity. She was declared a co-patroness of Italy along with St. Francis of Assisi.
 
 

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
Bernard was born into a family of the highest nobility, the third of seven children, in Burgundy, France in 1090 A.D. He was sent to a renowned school at Chatillion-sur-Seine and excelled in his studies.  He wanted to become proficient in literature so that he could take up the study of Sacred Scripture, which became his life-long love.  From an early age he had a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin, Mary.  He had the temptation of youth, but it was said his virtues triumphed over them.

When his pious mother Aleth died his bonds to the world were broken and he sought a monastic life. His father, sister and five brothers all tried to talk him out of a religious life, but his description of the life of a disciple living for Christ was so moving that four of his brothers, his uncle and many of his friends joined him in entering the Citeaux.
Probably the most famous Cistercian foundation was in the valley of Clairvaux (meaning valley of light), founded by St. Bernard.  He became a monk and three years later so many men had joined him that he was sent by the Abbot, St. Stephen, to found the daughter abbey of Clairvaux, where he remained abbot until his death in 1153. The name Clairvaux became inseparable from his own.  Even his aged father, Teslcelin, came to join the monastery.

Bernard of Clarivaux was a mystic, an eloquent preacher, a gifted writer and he contributed greatly to the life of the Cistercian order.  In a speech he gave to the general chapter of the order in 1119 he spoke of the need for regularity and fervor in the monastery.  This helped the chapter to give form to the constitutions of the order and the regulations of the “Charter of Charity,” which were approved by Pope Callistus II at the end of that year. One of his first works were his Homilies in Praise of Mary, which were published in 1120. His zeal resulted in many conversions and the restoration of discipline in the monasteries.

When at the death of Pope Honorius II in 1130 a schism threatened with the election of two popes, Innocent II and Anacletus II, the much respected Abbot of Clairvaux was called upon by the bishops to decide between them. He chose Innocent II and accompanied him into Italy (Anacletus had forced him to leave Rome) causing the great powers to recognize the true pope after years of peace making on Bernard’s part.  Anacletus died still in schism in 1138. 

Historian Fr. John Laux says that since the days of the early Church there was no greater miracle worker!  The sick were brought to Clairvaux from all over and were healed by his touch and prayers.  One of his early miracles was in healing a suffering child of Clairvaux whose arm was paralyzed and his hand withering. St. Bernard blessed the child with the sign of the cross and prayed over him, then, giving him back to his mother completely restored. In another case a rich man named Humbert, who was suffering from epilepsy falling into fits multiple times each day, was cured by Saint, who held him in particular affection.  Humbert subsequently became a friar himself and eventually, the Abbot of the monastery of Igny.  One of his miracles took place after the dedication of a new church for a monastery in the diocese of Leon.  The holy service was disturbed by the buzzing and harassment of a great number of flies. St. Bernard, perhaps in frustration, cried "Excommunicabe  eas.”  The next day the dead flies blackened the church floor and had to be taken out with shovels. This miracle was so “this miracle was so well known, and so celebrated, that the curse of the flies of Foigny passed into a proverb among the people around, who had come from all parts to assist at the dedication of that church.” 

Still another, occurred after a number of knights on their way to a tournament asked for lodging at Clairvaux. He asked them to concede a truce until after the days of holy Lent, but they refused.  They left for the tournament but ended up returning in shame after hearing St. Bernard's prayers, and ended by taking off their knightly armor and becoming monks.  Henceforth, they resolved their warfare would be spiritual and in the service of the children of God.

In less than 40 years seventy other monasteries all over Europe branched off from it.  Before his death at age 63, he founded 143 monasteries in Europe.  He was also a peace maker (e.g., settled long standing dispute between Pisa and Genoa) in world politics and a preacher of the second crusade.  So he had tremendous influence in many areas.  He was the most influential supporter of Pope Innocent II (1130-1143) in his long struggle against two anti-popes, persuading one to release his claims after the death of the other.

As a monk Bernard had a tremendous Marian devotion and hymns and was noted for his monastic spirituality and type of writing. One of Bernard’s greatest works was his commentary on the Song of Songs which is full of deep spiritual reflections.  It is important though to see that Bernard was a great preacher and spiritual writer, considered by some historians as the last of the Fathers of the Church. Pope Pius VIII gave him the title “Doctor of the Church.”

In His work, On Loving God, he wrote:

Those who admit the truth of what I have said know, I am sure, why we are bound to love God. But if unbelievers will not grant it, their ingratitude is at once confounded by His innumerable benefits, lavished on our race, and plainly discerned by the senses. Who is it that gives food to all flesh, light to every eye, air to all that breathe? It would be foolish to begin a catalogue, since I have just called them innumerable: but I name, as notable instances, food, sunlight and air; not because they are God’s best gifts, but because they are essential to bodily life. Man must seek in his own higher nature for the highest gifts; and these are dignity, wisdom and virtue. By dignity I mean free-will, whereby he not only excels all other earthly creatures, but has dominion over them. Wisdom is the power whereby he recognizes this dignity, and perceives also that it is no accomplishment of his own. And virtue impels man to seek eagerly for Him who is man’s Source, and to lay fast hold on Him when He has been found.

We pray with St. Bernard in his words:

Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts, Thou fount of life, thou Light of men, From the best bliss that earth imparts We turn unfilled to Thee again. We taste Thee, O Thou living Bread, And long to feast upon Thee still: We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead, And thirst our souls from Thee to fill. O Jesus, ever with us stay, Make all our moments calm and bright; Chase the dark night of sin away, Shed o'er the world Thy holy light. -

​St. Bernard of Clairvaux pray for us!
 
 

Saint Charles Borromeo and the Plague

St. Charles Borromeo was elevated to Cardinal at the age of 22 years old and was not prepared. He was not yet a priest. It was he as papal secretary of state, who did the lion’s share of the work in bringing the final sessions of the Council of Trent into session again in 1562. His older brother Federigo died during the Council and it caused him to devote himself to the religious life.  He resisted all efforts for him to give up his office and marry for the interests of his family and instead was secretly ordained a priest in 1563.

After the Council he devoted himself to three monumental projects, the Catechism that incorporated the teaching of the Council of Trent and the revision of the Missal and the Breviary. He also worked on the commission for the reform of church music. 

He then undertook the monumental task of reforming the Archdiocese of Milan in accordance with the decrees of Trent. He did not return to his Archdiocese in Milan until 1565 and was met with great rejoicing as the first resident archbishop in eighty years. 

He gave up much of his property to the poor and lived with great mortification, all the while reforming the clergy, founding schools and the Confraternity of Christian doctrine for the children (Sunday school).  He showed himself to be dedicated to a profound reformation in the interior life of the Church. He encouraged priests and religious to believe in the power of prayer and penance as a means of becoming holy.  He preached to them that “souls are won on one’s knees.
In 1569 he survived an assassination attempt by member of the Order of Humilati (“a doctrinally suspect religious order”), some of whom decided they could not live with the reforms he imposed on them.  It was considered a miracle that the bullet, from an arquebus, did not penetrate his vestments.    

He helped to bring about a great re-conversion to the Church in Switzerland, risking his life at a time when Calvin’s version of Christianity was strong, visiting all of the Catholic cantons. When famine followed by plague struck Milan in 1576, he risked his life continually visiting the sick and the dying and his example finally led others of his clergy to follow his example.
He visited hospitals, organized penitential processions in the streets because he believed the plague was a “scourge sent by heaven” to bring the people to a spiritual reckoning so that more souls might be saved.  He was convinced that the great mercy of God was evident in this crisis in which 6000 people died in two months.

In periods of plague or famine, processions, usually carrying the relics of the Blessed Virgin or a Saint, have been held and praying for relief from the calamity. One example was that of Pope Gregory the Great in 590, who organized a procession from all seven areas of Rome to come together at the Basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary, praying for forgiveness of sins and an end to the plague. At the tomb of the former Emperor Hadrian, Pope Gregory saw a vision of St. Michael the Archangel sheathing his sword, which indicated the plague was over. 

When the magistrates in Milan tried to get the Cardinal Archbishop, St. Charles, to end the processions, he was able to remind them of the effectiveness of a similar procession by Pope St. Gregory the Great.  He even got the governor of the province, who had fled, to return to the city.
Later, when the people were too afraid to come out on the streets, St. Charles closed all the Churches and built altars outside them so that the faithful would have the opportunity to attend Mass even from the windows of their homes. He also initiated the practice of the forty hours devotion, displaying the Blessed Sacrament outside the Church for a period of forty hours. He asked for volunteers to help the people in the most need and donated Church tapestries to their relief.  Led by St. Charles the Church he tried to feed 60,000 to 70,000 people each day, going into debt after expending his own funds to do so.

He died November 3, 1884 at the age of 46, after a lifetime of courageous good works. During his lifetime popes and sovereigns all over Europe sought his advice. Cardinal Baronius called him “a second [Saint] Ambrose, whose early death, lamented by all men, inflicted great loss on the Church.”
​
St. Charles pray for us, especially now during this crisis of the coronavirus.
 

Saint Faustina Kowalska
 
Maria Faustina Kowalska was born on August 25, 1905 in Glogowiez, Poland.  She grew up in a poor, but religious family.  Her father was a carpenter.  She mserved as housekeeper in several cities before joining the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in 1925, where she was assigned duties as a cook, gardener and porter. 
 
Despite her humble background it was soon evident that she had a rich interior life as a mystic.  She regularly saw and received messages from Jesus himself.  Although she confided these to her confessor Father Michał Sopoćko, who supported her, she struggled at times to know if God was really calling her to establish the new devotion of divine mercy.  This was because of her profound humility and to be sure she was not being deceived by Satan. In time Jesus helped her to understand her mission and carry it out. 
 
She recorded in her diary: “Neither graces, nor revelations, nor raptures, nor gifts granted to a soul make it perfect, but rather the intimate union of the soul with God. These gifts are merely ornaments of the soul, but constitute neither its essence nor its perfection. My sanctity and perfection consist in the close union of my will with the will of God.”
 
For more on St. Faustina go to: 
 
https://www.thedivinemercy.org/message/stfaustina/bio
 
Saint Faustina followed the instructions she received from Jesus to have a picture of Jesus painted that reflected what she saw of him in her visions. This is the Divine Mercy image shown below:
 

​St. Thérèse of Lisieux was born in 1873 at Alençon, France to Louis and Zelie Martin, who lived a model Christian life that led to five of their daughters, including Thérèse, joining religious orders.  

Thérèse wanted to join two older sisters and join the convent at Lisieux so badly that she actually approached Pope Leo XIII by herself on a family trip to Rome and asked his permission to join when she was only fifteen years old.  He deferred to the superior of the convent, however, who had told her she was not yet old enough.

She experienced what she called her “complete conversion” after nine years of childhood grieving over the loss of her mother which was compounded when her older sisters entered the Carmelite monastery (Pauline had been like a second mother to her). She finally halted her grieving and self-pity for the sake of her father and others. Writing about this ten years later she said: 
 
In an instant Jesus, content with my good will, accomplished the work I had not been able to do in ten years." After nine sad years she had "recovered the strength of soul she had  lost when her mother died and, she said, she was to retain it forever". 

Her little way underscores the truth that we can rely upon the mercy of Jesus if we place our trust wholeheartedly in Him. In the face of her littleness she trusted in God to be her sanctity.  Not having “the facility to perform great ones” she performed little virtues. Thérèse admitted that she was not attracted to the great acts of mortification of the Saints and never made acts of penance because of her “cowardliness.”  

St. Thérèse returned over and over to the theme of littleness, referring to herself as a grain of sand, an image she borrowed from Pauline...'Always littler, lighter, in order to be lifted more easily by the breeze of love.'  She wanted to go to heaven by an entirely new little way. "I wanted to find an elevator that would raise me to Jesus". The elevator, she wrote, would be the arms of Jesus lifting her in all her littleness.  

St. Thérèse’s little sacrifices included spending time with another religious sister who annoyed her in almost everything and being kind to her. She wrote:

“Not wishing to give in to the natural antipathy I was experiencing I told myself to doing for this Sister what I would do for the person I loved the most.”

Once when someone took her lamp at night by mistake after night prayers, she remained in the dark without complaining, observing that by virtue of the exterior darkness, “I was interiorly illumined!” 

When unjustly blamed for something that was not her fault, she decided not to defend herself and accept the verbal correction without making any excuses consoling herself that everything would be revealed at the Last Judgment. 

She thought her assignment of kitchen duty was a good way of “putting my self-love in its proper place, i.e., under my feet.”  She gives countless examples of this sort from refraining from chatting to not complaining when dirty laundry water was splashed on her and not asking questions she was curious about novices while training them.  All of these and many more she offered to the Lord.  These humble submissions and small sacrifices were the stuff of the “Little Way.”

But she did not get overconfident and expected daily to discover other imperfections in herself to work on.  She saw her own weakness not something to be depressed about, but rather as an opportunity to receive more of the treasury of God’s mercy. This she believed would be a sign that He wanted to “live more deeply in her” (Martin, The Fulfillment of all Desires, p. 149). 

She was also a realist and knew she was not perfect. If a situation arose which she thought exceeded her level of virtue, she tried to avoid the situation so as not to fail in charity.  She wrote, “My last means of being defeated in combats is desertion.”  

One of the weaknesses she considered most embarrassing, was falling asleep during prayer times, but she was confident that the Lord was mindful of our littleness and that she was forgiven.

During the course of her novitiate, contemplation of the Holy Face had nourished her inner life. This is an image representing the disfigured face of Jesus during His Passion. And she meditated on certain passages from the prophet Isaiah (Chapter 53). Six weeks before her death she remarked to Pauline, "The words in Isaiah: 'no stateliness here, no majesty, no beauty,...one despised, left out of all human reckoning; How should we take any account of him, a man so despised (Is 53:2-3) --these words were the basis of my whole worship of the Holy Face. I, too, wanted to be without comeliness and beauty...unknown to all creatures."[75] 

St. Thérèse admitted that she had spoken of dryness as her daily bread, yet she was a very happy creature confident in God’s love. For Thérèse sanctity was “a disposition of the heart which makes us humble and small in the arms of God, conscious of our weakness, and confident to the point of audacity in the goodness of our Father” (Fr. Jean C.J. D’Elbee, I Believe in Love: A Personal Retreat Based on the Teaching of St. Therese de Lisieux).

She worked at abandoning herself to Jesus by submitting to everything within the limits of the possible and reasonable, in order to obey God, to humbly live in conformity with the will of God, which gradually becomes our will.  

St. Thérèse’s confidence in God’s mercy even in the midst of her suffering from the tuberculosis that would take her life is extraordinary.  She wrote to Sr. Marie of the Sacred Heart on her littleness:
 
Oh, Jesus, how much I could say to all little souls about how ineffable Your  condescension is . . . I feel that if (though this would be impossible) [If] You were to find a soul more weak and little than mine, You would be pleased to shower upon it even greater favors, if it abandoned itself to You with complete confidence in Your infinite mercy.”

When St. Thérèse was dying and too sick to receive the Eucharist, it was she who consoled the other sisters saying, “No doubt, it is a great grace to receive the sacraments.  When God does not permit it, it is good too! Everything is a grace!” She, of course, still had the consolation of her spiritual communions.  

She was convinced she too was dying of love, as our Lord did on the Cross in anguish.  She was dying of suffocation from tuberculosis in her lungs, only one of which was functioning at that point. In the Infirmary where she was staying she pinned to her curtains pictures of the Holy Face of Christ, the Blessed Virgin and Blessed Théophane Vénard, a young Fr. priest martyred in Vietnam.  She expressed her desire to spend her heaven in God’s service to others and indeed, she has been one of the most popular saints of the modern era.

Just before she died with all of her sisters present, she gazed at the crucifix and exclaimed, “Oh!  I love Him!” and finally, “My God, I love you!”  Just before she died she seemed to be in ecstasy with a mysterious smile upon her face.  She is beautiful and her “little way” is something to be emulated by us all.  

St. Therese pray for us!