“It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love.” These striking words of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face say it all. They sum up the genius of her spirituality and would suffice to justify the fact that she has been named a Doctor of the Church. Confidence, “nothing but confidence,” is the sole path that leads us to the Love that grants everything. With confidence, the wellspring of grace overflows into our lives, the Gospel takes flesh within us and makes us channels of mercy for our brothers and sisters.
It is confidence that sustains us daily and will enable us to stand before the Lord on the day when he calls us to himself: “In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is stained in your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in your own Justice and to receive from your Love the eternal possession of yourself.” ….
The confidence that Therese proposes has to do with more than our individual sanctification and salvation. It has an integral meaning that embraces the totality of concrete existence and finds application in our daily lives, where we are often assailed by fears, the desire for human security, the need to have everything under control. Here we see the importance of her invitation to a holy “abandonment”.
The complete confidence that becomes an abandonment in Love sets us free from obsessive calculations, constant worry about the future and fears that take away our peace. In her final days, Therese insisted on this: “We who run in the way of love shouldn’t be thinking of suffering that can take place in the future; it’s a lack of confidence.” If we are in the hands of a Father who loves us without limits, this will be the case come what may; we will be able to move beyond whatever may happen to us and, in one way or another, his plan of love and fullness will come to fulfillment in our lives. ….
For Therese, the one God is revealed above all else in his mercy, which is the key to understanding everything else that can be said of him: “To me he has granted his infinite mercy and through it I contemplate and adore the other divine perfections! All of these perfections appear to be resplendent with love, even his Justice (and perhaps this even more so than the others) seems to me clothed in love.” This is one of the loftiest insights of Therese, one of her major contributions to the entire People of God. In an extraordinary way, she probed the depths of divine mercy, and drew from them the light of her limitless hope.
~Excerpts from Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation on Saint Therese and Confidence in the Merciful Love of God, October 15, 2023. Sections 1-3, 23-24, 27.
