lost.' - St. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660 AD) ************************************************

Whois Your Lazarus?

#### The Little, Great Saint

St. Thérèse Martin (1873 - 1897 AD) was born in France into a devout, Catholic family. All five daughters entered religious life and both parents (Louis & Zélie) went on to be canonized in 2015. Thérèse received special permission to join the Carmelite convent in her hometown of Lisieux at the young age of 15. She would live and pray and work there in obscurity until her death from tuberculosis at the age of twenty-four. After her passing, the publishing of her spiritual autobiography, ' The Story of a Soul, ' was phenomenally successful and there were widespread reports of prayers being answered through her intercession. St. Pope Pius X (1903- 1914) privately described her as " the greatest saint of modern times " and she was canonized in 1925. Her feast day is October 1 . st Despite her greatness, Thérèse experienced everyday difficulties like our own. Amidst these she sought to do small things with great love; calling this her ' Little Way ' to holiness and Heaven. This is one episode St. Thérèse relates

The Lord says through the prophet Amos, ' Woe to the complacent ,' to those warm and well-fed, comfortable on their couches without concern for others. Indeed, Scripture says, ' whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen .' (1 st John 4:20) You know of Jesus' concern for the needy. Though he was rich, dwelling in the comfort of the Trinity, our Lord came to earth and became poor for your sake, so that by his poverty you might become rich. (2 Cor. 8:9) nd The rich man in Jesus' parable could not have been unaware of the man lying at his door. Apparently, the rich man even knew his name: ' Father Abraham… Send Lazarus… ' But the rich man came to deeply regret his indifference toward this neighbor. You know a Lazarus as well. He's not sleeping on your doorstep, but you probably know his name. He (or she) may be well-known to you or only an acquaintance. Maybe Lazarus goes to your church, or hasn't come for years. Maybe Lazarus lives just down the street or in a nursing home far away. Your Lazarus is in great need, but probably not for food or shelter. St. Teresa of Calcutta, who cared for many poor Lazaruses in India's slums, said, ' The spiritual poverty of the Western World is much greater than the physical poverty of our people .' The poorest of the poor are in our midst. Knowing this, I ask that you to earnestly pray to the Holy Spirit, that He may reveal your personal Lazarus to you, so that you may lovingly attend to that person as Jesus would have you do. ************************************************ ' The first step to be taken by one who wishes to follow Christ is, according to Our Lord's own words, that of renouncing himself - that is, his own senses, his own passions, his own will, his own judgment, and all the movements of nature, making to God a sacrifice of all these things, and of all their acts, which are surely sacrifices very acceptable to the Lord. And we must never grow weary of this; for if anyone having, so to speak, one foot already in Heaven, should abandon this exercise, when the time should come for him to put the other there, he would run much risk of being

######## in her (highly-recommended) autobiography:

' The practice of charity, as I have said, dear Mother [Mother Agnes, that is, her biological sister, Pauline, who was prioress at the time,] was not always so sweet for me, and to prove it to you I amgoing to recount certain little struggles which will certainly make you smile. For a long time at evening meditation, I was placed in front of a sister whohadastrange habit and I think many lights [spiritual insights] because she rarely used a book during meditation. This is what I noticed: as soon as this sister arrived, she began making a strange little noise which resembled the noise one would make when rubbing two shells, one against the other. I was the only one to notice it because I had extremely sensitive hearing (too much so at times.) Mother, it would be impossible for me to tell you howmuch this little noise wearied me. I had a great desire to turn myheadandstare at the culprit who was very certainly unaware of her ' click. ' This would be the only way of enlightening her. However, in the bottom of my heart I felt it was much better to suffer this out of love for God and not to cause the sister any pain. I remained calm, therefore, and tried to unite myself to God and to forget the little noise. Everything was useless. I felt the perspiration inundate me, and I was obliged simply to make a prayer of doing it without annoyance and with peace and joy, at least in the interior of mysoul. I tried to love the little noise which was so displeasing; instead of trying not to hear it (impossible), I paid close attention so as to hear it well, as though it were a delightful concert, and