05. the Church needs to radiate ,brightness, fragrance and the joy of the Gospel.Send us your roses!
Channel: My Helper The Holy Spirit
Date: 2023-11-29

APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION
ON CONFIDENCE IN THE MERCIFUL LOVE OF GOD
FOR THE 150th ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF
SAINT THERESE OF THE CHILD JESUS AND THE HOLY FACE
4. At the heart of the Gospel
46. In Evangelii Gaudium, I urged a return to the freshness of the source, in order to emphasize what is essential and indispensable. I now consider it fitting to take up that invitation and propose it anew.
The Doctor of synthesis
47. This Exhortation on Saint Therese allows me to observe that, in a missionary Church, “the message has to concentrate on the essentials, on what is most beautiful, most grand, most appealing and at the same time most necessary. The message is simplified, while losing none of its depth and truth, and thus becomes all the more forceful and convincing”.The luminous core of that message is “the beauty of the saving love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ who died and rose from the dead”. 
48. Not everything is equally central, because there is an order or hierarchy among the truths of the Church, and “this holds true as much for the dogmas of faith as for the whole corpus of the Church’s teaching, including her moral teaching”. The centre of Christian morality is charity, as our response to the unconditional love of the Trinity. Consequently, “works of love directed towards one’s neighbour are the most perfect manifestation of the interior grace of the Spirit”. In the end, only love counts.

49. The specific contribution that Therese offers us as a saint and a Doctor of the Church is not analytical, along the lines, for example, of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Her contribution is more synthetic, for her genius consists in leading us to what is central, essential and indispensable. By her words and her personal experience she shows that, while it is true that all the Church’s teachings and rules have their importance, their value, their clarity, some are more urgent and more foundational for the Christian life. That is where Therese directed her eyes and her heart.

50. As theologians, moralists and spiritual writers, as pastors and as believers, wherever we find ourselves, we need constantly to appropriate this insight of Therese and to draw from it consequences both theoretical and practical, doctrinal and pastoral, personal and communal. We need boldness and interior freedom to do so.

51. At times, the only quotes we find cited from this saint are secondary to her message, or deal with things she has in common with any other saint, such as prayer, sacrifice, Eucharistic piety, and any number of other beautiful testimonies. Yet in this way, we could be depriving ourselves of what is most specific about her gift to the Church. We forget that “each saint is a mission, planned by the Father to reflect and embody, at a specific moment in history, a certain aspect of the Gospel”. Indeed, “to recognize the word that the Lord wishes to speak to us through one of his saints, we do not need to get caught up in details… What we need to contemplate is the totality of their life, their entire journey of growth in holiness, the reflection of Jesus Christ that emerges when we grasp their overall meaning as a person”. This is all the more true in the case of Saint Therese, since we are dealing with a “Doctor of synthesis”.

52. From heaven to earth, the timely witness of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face endures in all the grandeur of her little way.

  In an age that urges us to focus on ourselves and our own interests, Therese shows us the beauty of making our lives a gift.
  At a time when the most superficial needs and desires are glorified, she testifies to the radicalism of the Gospel.
 In an age of individualism, she makes us discover the value of a love that becomes intercession for others.
 At a time when human beings are obsessed with grandeur and new forms of power, she points out to us the little way.
 In an age that casts aside so many of our brothers and sisters, she teaches us the beauty of concern and responsibility for one another.
At a time of great complexity, she can help us rediscover the importance of simplicity, the absolute primacy of love, trust and abandonment, and thus move beyond a legalistic or moralistic mindset that would fill the Christian life with rules and regulations, and cause the joy of the Gospel to grow cold.
In an age of indifference and self-absorption, Therese inspires us to be missionary disciples, captivated by the attractiveness of Jesus and the Gospel.
53. A century and a half after her birth, Therese is more alive than ever in the pilgrim Church, in the heart of God’s people. She accompanies us on our pilgrim way, doing good on earth, as she had so greatly desired. The most lovely signs of her spiritual vitality are the innumerable “roses” that Therese continues to strew: the graces God grants us through her loving intercession in order to sustain us on our journey through life.