{"id":10405,"date":"2020-10-02T16:04:07","date_gmt":"2020-10-02T21:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/?p=10405"},"modified":"2026-02-26T13:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T19:38:12","slug":"the-little-way-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/2020\/10\/02\/the-little-way-today\/","title":{"rendered":"The little way today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My three-year-old daughter, JoyAna, loves the garden. She walks around smelling flowers, searching for worms and almost indiscriminately exclaiming, \u201cWhoa, daddy, this is amazing.\u201d Last week she got a hold of a red and yellow zinnia and, with all the free-spiritedness of an exuberant toddler, ran up and down the sidewalk unpetalling and tossing the flower bit by bit. After navigating my own inward journey of concern for her safety by the road and guilt for taking a neighbor\u2019s zinnia (sorry, neighbor), I smiled and thought of The Little Flower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"painting-girl-fsky-ield-flowers\"
“the little flower” by Janice Joy Little<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On October 1, the Church joyfully remembers one who teaches us the little way of Jesus, St. Therese of Lisieux, who gave witness to the expansive height, depth, width and breadth of God\u2019s love through the bold proclamation that the stirring vitality of holiness resides in the depths of ordinary existence. This little way calls us to share the fragrance of Christ\u2019s mercy in the smallest perpetually-present gestures of love and to bear our weaknesses meekly. By some mystery, as we tap into the fountainhead of grace in the small relinquishments and little acts of tenderness and welcome in our everyday lives, the way of spiritual childhood opens for us the pathway to participation in the kingdom of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSanctity does not consist in performing such and such acts; it means being ready at heart to become small and humble in the arms of God, acknowledging our own weaknesses and trusting in His fatherly goodness to the point of audacity.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the well-known images associated with St. Therese that illustrates this audacious trust and readiness of heart is the strewing of flowers. Her petals are all the little opportunities throughout her day to share God\u2019s love. Just as fragrant beauty spreads when one unpetals and scatters a flower, each of these small gestures \u2014 interior and exterior love-offerings for God \u2014 put forth the aroma of Christ. Jesus takes great pleasure in this, according to Therese, and it was her small way to \u201cmake Love loved\u201d in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"black-white-drawing-woman
“Saint Therese Doing the Dishes” by Brother Michael O’Neill McGrath, OSFS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What does Therese\u2019s little way have to say to us today? This is a particularly important question for us in this collective moment in our country, as the generational aching caused by racial injustice breaks through the surface and we are brought face-to-face with the glaring connection between oppression and many of the systems upon which our common life is built \u2013 including education, judicial law and incarceration, and money-making. I pray that communities and congregations nationwide ask this question and reckon with the wisdom of Therese in honest, curious dialogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, a helpful entry point for these questions leads me to yet another sister in the faith: Dorothy Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dorothy\u2019s prophetic witness for justice confronted the filthy, rotten systems of her day with relentless force. She has inspired so many to live radically the way of Jesus that is alternative to the logic of the unjust and dehumanizing structures of a profit-driven society. Her way of prayer, voluntary poverty and works of mercy glows with the light of Therese\u2019s little way. And Dorothy didn\u2019t simply apply Therese\u2019s wisdom to her spiritual life of prayer and interior attentiveness but also to her social and economic commitments. The Catholic Worker Movement, under Dorothy\u2019s bold leadership, encouraged a personalist response to the unjust social order of her time, including the little way of credit unions and farming communes, along with small enterprises and cooperatives that valued human labor and shared ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dorothy describes her first introduction to St. Therese as an underwhelming experience. She almost took offense to the confessor\u2019s recommendation to read \u201cStory of a Soul,\u201d finding Therese\u2019s little way too small and preferring to read about heroic and inimitable saints. Over her years living in Catholic Worker hospitality houses, studying and writing about the Church\u2019s response to the unjust social order, Dorothy discovered Therese\u2019s little way to be the path accessible to all, including and especially the poor and the downtrodden. The teaching of the little way makes room for anyone in any circumstance to participate in the loving, active presence of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here in Durham, we often reflect upon what our call to follow Jesus on the little way looks like here and now. By grace, there is in our community an integration along the barrier lines that often separate us from one another \u2014 namely race, age and disability. Our society has been arranged, largely through the logics of profit and fear, in such a way that most people who are different along these (and many other) lines do not share intimate daily life. Praise God for the exceptions to this all over the country that provide an alternative imagination, but the setup of our society makes it much easier to be more proximate to those who are like us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every day, the nine of us in our home are each involved in a small, personalist response to some monstrously big social ills, including racism and the exclusion and belittling of persons with disabilities. Some of us live with developmental disabilities. Some of us are Black and some are white. Our ages range from nine months to 69 years. Naming this suggests no heroism (in fact, the challenge and constant failings are apparent each day) but rather indicates that St. Therese\u2019s little way makes sense of our common life together and provides a framework for adventurous, sacred meaning in our everyday lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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