(School Mass): Friday, October 01, 2004

(Feast of St. Thérèse)

I love the Gospel we just listened to [Mt 18, 1-5]. Jesus called over a child and put him in the middle of a group of his disciples. He told them, “Look at this child. You have to be like children if you want to get into the kingdom of heaven.”

What did Jesus mean? What are children like that makes them special in God’s eyes?

I’ll bet when you were very small, before you even started school, you liked to watch some of the popular children’s shows on television. I bet you watched Sesame Street, Barney and Friends, and lots of cartoons.

I love the story of a little girl named Katie. She was 3 years old, and she got a bad case of the flu. Her Mom was worried about her, so she took her to the doctor. The doctor looked in Katie’s ears with his special scope, and he said, “Will I find Big Bird in here?”

Katie thought the doctor was kind of weird. She said, “No.”

Then, the doctor wanted to look at her throat. He asked, “Will I find the Cookie Monster in here?”

Katie laughed a little bit and said, “No.”

And then, the doctor got his stethoscope because he wanted to listen to her heart. He put the instrument to her chest and asked her, “Will I find Barney in here?”

Katie looked him in the eye and said, “No. Jesus is in my heart. Barney is on my underwear.”

We smile or laugh at that because Katie’s answer is very innocent. That means she answered the doctor very simply and honestly. She wasn’t trying to be funny or a wise guy. She just answered his question directly and truthfully.

And that’s exactly what Jesus means when he says that we should all be like children. He wants us to be honest and simple, and not to worry too much about whether the truth we speak may sound goofy to some people. When we’re like children, we’re not embarrassed or shy to tell people that we love Jesus and that He’s in our heart—just like Katie did. Jesus wants all of us to be simple and innocent.

Today the Church celebrates the feast of a very great saint who was always simple and innocent. Her name was Thérèse; that’s French for “Theresa.” She grew up in a little village in France in a very loving home, but when she was still quite young, her mother died. So Thérèse’s father and sisters raised her.

Even when she was quite small, Thérèse wanted to be a saint. She loved praying and going to church, and when she got a little older—about your age—she made up her mind that she wanted to be a nun. She tried and tried to get into the Carmelite convent, but she was much too young. Finally, after praying hard and pleading, she was allowed to enter the religious life as a teenager. She was so happy!

Once Thérèse got into the convent, she realized that she was just a young girl and didn’t know how she could do all the great big things that she thought nuns had to do to become a saint. So she said to herself, “There has to be another way. I’m just small and simple. There has to be a small and simple way.”

So you know what she did? She got out her Bible and started to read. She figured that she would find the answers in there someplace—so she read and read.

And one day, she found the answer! She found the place where St. Paul wrote that God is love. “That’s it!” she said to herself. “The small and simple way to God is love!”

So Thérèse made up her mind that she would do everything with love. If she had to do a chore—like sweeping the floor or peeling potatoes—she would say, “Jesus, I’m doing this little job as a way to send you my love!” Or, if somebody was mean to her or spoke unkindly to her, she’d say, “Jesus, I won’t get mad; I’ll just smile and pray for this person out of love for you.”

And everything she did became an act of love. Thérèse said that nothing we do is ever too small to help us become holy. Even picking up a piece of crumpled-up paper off the hallway floor in school can help us become a saint if we do it out of love for Jesus.

St. Thérèse is one of my favorite saints. Lots of times we feel people are putting pressure on us—or we put pressure on ourselves—to do big things… great things. “I have to get 100 on my test… I have to be the high-scorer in this basketball game… I’ve got to play this song without making a single mistake…”

But St. Thérèse just smiles and tells us that God loves us very much, and he’ll keep loving us no matter what. Sure, He wants us do our best, but it’s a lot more important to love than it is to succeed in those kinds of things.

St. Thérèse died when she was just 24 years old. She went from living at home to living behind the walls of a convent. She never made a scientific discovery. She never made a lot of money. She never did a lot of things.

Yet God tells us through His Church that she is one of the greatest saints who ever lived… because she knew exactly how to be that little child who Jesus stood in the middle of his group of disciples.

You can be just like St. Thérèse, too. You can be a great saint. It’s really very simple. Just pray every day and ask Jesus to show you the way. And remember always to love.