Today in A Year with the Church Fathers, we hear from St Eusebius. He tells us of a VERY courageous young girl who told the emperor that he was doing her a favor by passing the sentence of her death, since it allowed her to join the ranks of the martyrs. When she said that, instead of having her tortured, he had her thrown into the sea, where she did indeed join the martyrs.
Quite a story. Not all of us are so brave, are we? In fact, most of us don't desire to join those ranks. But the picture above is of a different girl. Her name is Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face. Also known as Therese of Lisieux. Also known as the Little Flower.
She teaches us so much in her short book called The Story of a Soul. I highly recommend that you listen to it, for free, right here. In her little book, she talks about how she was able to become a martyr for Jesus, but not in the way that you and I usually think of martyrs. No one came and threatened her life unless she deny her faith. Instead, she offered up all of the little sufferings that she had in her life, and accepted them gladly, because they enabled her to participate in the sufferings of Jesus. They allowed her to become a martyr. She makes so much sense of the sufferings that we all go through in our lives. If you listen to her book, it will teach you the value of suffering.
Maybe you and I ARE called to become martyrs in the traditional sense. Maybe ISIS or some other group will come and threaten our lives unless we deny our faith. Or maybe, in the daily ins and outs of our lives, we will find the little way that Therese teaches us to become martyrs in all of our little sufferings.
In either case, they will bring us closer to Him, if we let them.
God, thank You for teaching us how to suffer in a way that brings us to You.
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