St Thérèse is aware of her poverty and speaks of needing an elevator to bring her to God, ‘“The elevator which must raise me to Heaven is Your arms, O Jesus.” We too stand in need of the elevator -Your arms, O Jesus – to raise us up.

She lives her surrender to Christ and is a model for us; that he can raise us up for our daily ministry if we imitate her. Her trust in the power of Christ’s suffering unites us with this idea of being raised up again as we face the daily temptations, trials and tribulations. We can trust profoundly in Christ because Jesus has said that he will never leave us orphans and that will be with us until the end of time.

The gospel shows us the ‘little way’ of St Thérèse. Her path of holiness was that of a little child who humbled herself to walk the way of love. She teaches her novices about spiritual childhood, the little steps of love, and doing the ordinary things of life with extraordinary love. She enters more and more deeply into the mystery of the Church and, drawn by the love of Christ, there grows within her the apostolic and missionary vocation which spurs her to bring everyone with her to meet Christ.

Thérèse teaches us to trust in the loving mercy of God, like a child at her mother’s breast, and there drink deeply with delight. She treasured the image of the child at the breast, ‘as one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you’. The Church, the New Jerusalem, nourishes us in this intimacy of love.

St. Thérèse also experiences a trial of faith, a grace of purification that immerses her in a long and painful dark night but is illuminated by her trust in the merciful love of God. She  abandons herself into God's hands and she grows in understanding her missionary vocation in the Church. She is to be ‘love at the heart of the church’ interceding for others.

Central to the life of St Thérèse is her understanding of the power of intercessory prayer and her place in the Church to offer such prayer. She becomes convinced of the power of her intercessory prayer at the age of 14 during the trial of Henri Pranzini for murder. An Italian on trial for murder protests his innocence. The whole of France knows of the trial and young Thérèse at home in Alençon is aware of the trial. One Sunday, at the end of Mass, a religious picture fell from her missal. On it was an image of the wounded and pierced divine hands. It seemed to her that it was as if the Precious Blood had fallen to the ground without anyone noticing. There and then, she resolved to place herself at the foot of the Cross, where she would “thirst” for the good of souls and snatch sinners from the flames of hell.

As the trial continued, St Thérèse prayed for Pranzini. At his execution, she receives a sign that he has accepted Christ and been forgiven. She tells us “The day after his execution I hastily opened the paper… and what did I see? Tears betrayed my emotion; I was obliged to run out of the room. Pranzini had mounted the scaffold without confessing or receiving absolution, and … turned round, seized the crucifix which the priest was offering to him, and kissed Our Lord’s Sacred Wounds three times … I had obtained the sign I asked for, and to me it was especially sweet. Was it not when I saw the Precious Blood flowing from the Wounds of Jesus that the thirst for souls first took possession of me?’

Later that year she travels of pilgrimage to Rome to request the Holy Father that she might enter Carmel. There are about 75 priests on the pilgrimage. On the pilgrimage her exalted view of priests is dented and she begins to recognise their fragility. She writes, ‘even though the sublime dignity of Priesthood raises them higher than the angels, they are still but weak and imperfect men’; whilst they are ‘salt of the earth’ in their mission, they are in much need of prayer.’

She understands in a new way that the reform of the Carmel has at its focus intercessory prayer for the world and especially for priests who face temptations and trials. She writes to her sister Céline in 1889, ‘Let us be apostles... let us save especially the souls of priests... let us pray, let us suffer for them, and on the last day, Jesus will be grateful. We shall give him souls! Céline, do you understand the cry of my soul (Letters 94). We can rely on the prayers of the sisters in the Carmel.

St Thérèse is especially close to two priests through her correspondence. She had always desired a brother – two died in infancy. However, when Père Maurice Belliard asked the Carmel for an intercessor, Mother Agnes of Jesus (in fact Thérèse’s sister Pauline) assigned her the task of being a spiritual sister to him. He later became a White Father in modern day Malawi. He had a short life with trials of sickness, mental illness and misunderstandings.

Later, she was also assigned Père Adolph Roulland, from the Paris Foreign Missions, who went as a missionary to China.

St Thérèse writes to them offering spiritual guidance, encouraging them in their suffering and points out the need to trust through these trials in the love of Christ. She offers their sufferings and her own to Christ Crucified so that he would pour graces upon them and so they would be raised up through the power of the paschal mystery.

At the end of her short life she wrote,

‘I shall be more useful to you in heaven than on earth... I really count on not remaining inactive in Heaven. My desire is to work still for the Church and for souls...’ (LT 254)

From her place in heaven, St Thérèse, Patron of the Missions, continues to intercede for us as love in the heart of the Church. St Thérèse of Lisieux pray for us.