Therese and obedience - 26th week Tuesday 2013

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus.  Supposedly today is your fiesta because Assumption is part of the parish of Sta. Teresita.  The point is St. Therese is a patron and we entrust ourselves to her prayers and protection.  More than this however we look to her as a teacher of holiness.  Last night I have shown seminarians the book History of Spirituality , a thick book composed of two volumes and it narrates the history of spirituality from the start of Christianity until now.  It can be mind-boggling studying these two volumes.  But St. Therese simplified all of that with her childhood spirituality.  There are a lot of simple things that can become a path to holiness for us – simple things.  Today I would like to reflect on one path dear to the heart of St. Therese.  It is the virtue of obedience.  For Therese obedience is not just obedience which means to obey, to sacrifice one’s will, to bow down to the will of the superior, to go where you do not want to go.  No.  Obedience is a means of self-discovery, in fact it is the better means of self-discovery, better than the usual process of discernment, better than reflecting and scrutinizing your talents and potentials.  By obeying our superiors we discover so many things we never thought we had.  By obeying we are forced to awaken even latent possibilities in us.  By obeying we do away with the limitations we set on ourselves and make ourselves available for God. 

I think this is something we should look into. 

In the gospel Jesus set his eyes in Jerusalem.  In obedience to the Father the gospel describes this journey as resolutely determined.  He was going to obey his father and no amount of obstacles, no amount of sunggod from the Samaritans nor the seething anger of his companions will distract him from that resolve.  The obedience of Jesus.  The obedience of Therese.  Let us pray over this.