Holiness

MEMORY OF SAINT THERESE OF THE CHILD JESUS

1 OCTOBER

J.M.J.

Dear Father Thomas,

While I look through the window, I see how a pouring rain falls, It would be impossible to go out in a moment like this without getting soaked.

The rain reminds me to the church's teachings about the devotion to the Holy Eucharist, which guarantees the success and it's the most secure way to sanctity. Pope Paul VI says in Misterium Fidei that the most efficient way to grow in sanctity, is the time that we spend with Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.

Jesus himself said that his Heart in the Holy Sacrament, is a spring where run live water, and from where he call everybody to get near Him. (Jn 7, 38)

Every time that we get near Jesus, He sanctifies us.

Saint Therese, the Little Flower, was the true proof of this. She felt tremendously disheartened because she slept during her holy hour in the presence of Jesus in the Holy sacrament. Since her

entry to the convent Carmelite to dedicate herself to prayer and to the contemplative life, she was tempted to leave because she thought it was a total failure.

It was then when Jesus appeared to her and asked her if she remembered what her father told her when she was a child and slept on his lap. She answered that her father told her that he enjoyed so much that when she fell asleep on his lap, as when she was awake talking to him.

Then, Jesus replied: "The same goes for me!" Saint Therese died when she was twenty four years old and is known as the greatest saint of the XX century. Even when she was sleeping in the chapel she was growing in sanctity! Holiness is the second grace we receive.

And just as you could not go out now under the rain without getting soaked, you couldn't either be in the presence of the Holy Sacrament without without getting spiritually soaked and grow in the same life and holiness of the Lord. For this reason, the scripture says: 'He'll come to us (...) as the latter rain that waters the earth" (Os 6: 3)

Fraternally yours in His Eucharistic Love,

Mgr. Pepe