Gratefulness overwhelms me today.  I wish I could say I thank God each morning like I did on this one.  It is my 18th wedding anniversary.   My husband, Tom, remains the love of my life and one of the most honest and authentic people I have ever known.  To say that we are blessed is a ridiculous understatement.  It also happens to be the feast day of my favorite saint, St. Therese of Lisieux.  It was a holy and very funny priest who introduced me to her just a few years ago.  I don’t happen to believe in coincidence.  Like any deeply Catholic person, I am a supernatural thinker.  God’s plan was that I celebrate my marriage on the feast day of the saint who loved her bridegroom with stunning devotion and with joyful self sacrifice.  I remember reading her autobiography, Story of a Soul, and being blown away by her pure heart and passionate love of Christ.  Today, as I find myself filled with gratitude for the beautiful life and challenging, but rewarding vocation He has called me to live, I uncovered this old editorial I wrote about loving Christ with abandon.  It ran with a photograph of St. Therese, the Little Flower, which I am including in this post too.  I hope you enjoy the message.  What better day than my anniversary to share what I’ve learned about love.  St. Therese, Pray for Us!

Reassurance from others can lead us to believe we are in decent shape as far as “godliness” is concerned.  When we compare ourselves to those around us, we might even convince ourselves we stack up nicely compared to our neighbors.  Our security lies in our church attendance, generosity with others, work ethic, service to our parish, family or community.
Here is the rub, though.  Jesus wants ALL of us.  He wants us to love him with abandon, like our very lives are at stake– because they are!  Lukewarm people love Jesus, believe in him, and desire to do what is good.  We are often even moved to tears by stories of radical faith.  Surely, compared to those who don’t make it to mass at all, or who don’t raise their hand to help, we with caring hearts who share from our abundance and love our Savior, though safely, are in fine shape as far as eternity is concerned.  What does Jesus say?

As challenging as it is, it’s pretty clear the Lord is nauseated by us.  Uncommitted faith is an abomination to our Lord.  The word of God is absolutely concise.  “I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot.  I wish you were either cold or hot.  So, because you lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” (Rev. 3:15-16)
Frankly, that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up to attention.  Jesus wants to spit out the half-hearted?  Yikes.

Two amazing saints are St. Therese of Lisieux (The Little Flower) and St. Augustine.  These two are clarifiers for me on the issue, because though they are very different from one another, their commonality is loving Jesus with relentlessness.  The former was a contemplative who lived what most would say was an outwardly unspectacular and truly pious life inside the walls of a convent.  She very simply offered her every tiny daily sacrifice out of genuine love of God.  Her God given gifts were quiet, and she lived only 24 years, but her soul cried out to Jesus as spectacularly as anyone about whom I have ever read.  As for Augustine, through the powerful intercession of his mother, St. Monica, he overcame a life filled with sinfulness.  His love for God shines in his words, “I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.”  None of this sounds like halfhearted commitment.

To give Jesus ALL doesn’t mean we must do it in quiet hours of prayer and reverence like the Little Flower, or with bold panache and fantastic conversion like Augustine, it simply means our Savior wants us to use the grace and gifts He has given us to let Him be known.  To do so, we must look to the saints and love God passionately. The purpose of our very life should be to point to Him.

Here’s a good litmus test.  If we are obsessed by God, nothing else can get into our lives— not tribulations stress or worries.  Worry and stress reek of arrogance.  How can we dare to be so absolutely unbelieving when God totally surrounds us?

Are all we hopelessly lukewarm then?  What can we do?  Here’s some sage advice to ponder:

Be not afraid to tell Jesus that you love Him; even though it be without feeling, this is the way to oblige Him to help you, and carry you like a little child too feeble to walk.

 –St. Therese of Lisieux