Goodreads helps you follow your favorite authors. Be the first to learn about new releases!
Start by following Vernon Johnson.
Showing 1-3 of 3
“Surely--we argue--it is safer to make, at the Morning Offering, a virtual intention covering all the day, and then carry on with practical common sense.
This sounds excellent in theory, but too often it breaks down in practice and merely ends in the making of the Morning Offering, while we slip through the day on a purely natural plane till we arrive at our prayers in the evening; and it is precisely our habit of thus meeting the smallest actions of our daily life on the natural plane which makes them more than we can cope with. Divorced from their true purpose, that of leading us out of ourselves to God and to our fellow-men, they imprison us within ourselves and make us give way to self-pity and discontent.
On the other hand, if we do everything to please Our Lord we shall find ourselves becoming more and more alert to help others and far more conscious of the endless little opportunities around us, the value of which we had never realized before.”
― Spiritual Childhood: The Spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux
This sounds excellent in theory, but too often it breaks down in practice and merely ends in the making of the Morning Offering, while we slip through the day on a purely natural plane till we arrive at our prayers in the evening; and it is precisely our habit of thus meeting the smallest actions of our daily life on the natural plane which makes them more than we can cope with. Divorced from their true purpose, that of leading us out of ourselves to God and to our fellow-men, they imprison us within ourselves and make us give way to self-pity and discontent.
On the other hand, if we do everything to please Our Lord we shall find ourselves becoming more and more alert to help others and far more conscious of the endless little opportunities around us, the value of which we had never realized before.”
― Spiritual Childhood: The Spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux
“St. Therese saw things in their totality. She saw the smallest detail of life as part of an infinite whole; she saw the smallest suffering in its direct relation to heaven.
What was it that enabled her to see things thus? it was her littleness, that very thing in her which we so readily misunderstand. To the really little, to the really humble, to the soul, that is to say, that is completely dependent upon God, the whole universe and every detail of human life within it is a unity. The smallest thing on earth is inseparably linked with heaven. It is the humble who see things in their totality, because for them, God is the centre of everything. Their life therefore is a harmony, and they are at peace. On the other hand, the more grown up we are, the more self reliant and independent we become, the more is this truth hidden from our eyes, precisely because, self being the centre, we see things only after a fragmentary fashion. Life is full of discord and conflict; we become anxious and rebellious and know no peace.”
― Spiritual Childhood: The Spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux
What was it that enabled her to see things thus? it was her littleness, that very thing in her which we so readily misunderstand. To the really little, to the really humble, to the soul, that is to say, that is completely dependent upon God, the whole universe and every detail of human life within it is a unity. The smallest thing on earth is inseparably linked with heaven. It is the humble who see things in their totality, because for them, God is the centre of everything. Their life therefore is a harmony, and they are at peace. On the other hand, the more grown up we are, the more self reliant and independent we become, the more is this truth hidden from our eyes, precisely because, self being the centre, we see things only after a fragmentary fashion. Life is full of discord and conflict; we become anxious and rebellious and know no peace.”
― Spiritual Childhood: The Spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux
“...How do little children show their love? Through little things. A little child, just because it is little, is utterly unable to show its love in any other way. At some time or other we have all had evidence of that, if only we have had eyes to see it. The most superficial observation of human life shows us how very little children will continually offer little things to their mother- a toy, a picture, a flower - as evidence of their love. To show their love they relate everything to their mother, and the means they make use of are the insignificant details of their little world, the things that lie immediately to hand. We notice too that the mother, although she has no need of the toy, the picture, or the flower, loves the child to make these offerings, because she wants the love that lies behind them. In themselves they are nothing, but insofar as they express the love of her little child, those nothings become most precious.
The lesson is obvious. We who desire in the spirit of little children to offer our lives to God as one continual act of humble and confident love can do so only through the little ordinary details which lie around us in our daily life....for this reason the little things we do for him, in themselves apparently so insignificant, are to him infinitely previous.”
― Spiritual Childhood: The Spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux
The lesson is obvious. We who desire in the spirit of little children to offer our lives to God as one continual act of humble and confident love can do so only through the little ordinary details which lie around us in our daily life....for this reason the little things we do for him, in themselves apparently so insignificant, are to him infinitely previous.”
― Spiritual Childhood: The Spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux
