Feast of Saint Teresa of the Andes

Good morning. Sometimes in our life’s journey we must accept things on faith, more specifically we must accept them with a childlike quality. In today’s Gospel Jesus indicates that we must have this childlike faith in our relationship with Him. He suggests that it requires the trust and simplicity of a child to fully get it. Our Saint for today, Saint Teresa of the Andes offers some understanding of what this childlike posturing means for us. She suggests that we must have the faith of a child if we are to fully understand who God is. Her faith journey with God reminds us that when we were children we simply believed, free of the guardedness and questioning we acquire along the path to becoming adults. Somewhere along the way we become defensive and suspicious, we lose the awe and wonder of childhood. Children have much to teach us regarding this thing we adults call love. They offer us much insight into what it requires to fully embrace and appreciate, not just our relationship with God but likewise our relationships with those we love, our partner, our children, our friends. Love requires the vulnerability we witness with children, the complete openness and non-assuming acceptance of the other. As our Saint today suggests, “There, in that abyss of love, we’ll live as one.” Love requires being connected with others, a being of one with the other, free of thinking it through, but just being. Children seem to do this so well, crying one moment and laughing the next, a complete sense of connectedness with the moment without regard for whether it is proper. We must, if we are to fully experience love, be open to wonder, always on the ready for discovery. Love requires openness to being playful, to move beyond always needing to be in control, a freedom to just be. And most important, love requires a trust, an acceptance that it just is. May we learn to be more childlike in our relationship with God and with each other, more open, more receptive to the love that is offered and more freely giving without question in return. Be one with someone you love today. Make a great day!

Today we recall the good life, gifts, and works of Saint Teresa of the Andes.