The Catholic Calendar for Saturday, October 15, 2005
Saturday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary time
St. Teresa of Jesus (Avila), virgin, doctor of the Church

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Romans 4:13, 13-18
Psalm 105:6-9, 42-43
Luke 12:8-12

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

Today is the feast of a woman who, in worldly terms, could have been a Helen of Troy or a Cleopatra--or a Queen Elizabeth I. She possessed talent, charm, and the strongest of stubborn wills. Her temperament abhorred whatever was trivial and shallow. Had it not been for her strong character, she might so easily have succumbed to an easy religiosity in the lax atmosphere of her convent that merely "dabbled" in the sacred. Born to be a leader, she led a spiritual revolution in the Carmelite order against such an affront to true spiritual values. As a result, she is a splendid example of the bold discipleship described in today's Gospel. Teresa was a woman of the greatest courage, enduring a an opposition from her fellow-religious that can only be described as persecution. Calumniated, mistreated, and subjected to the cruelest of punishments by the religious authorities of Rome and the Carmelite superiors, she emerged from it all as a true saint.

What is the lesson for ourselves? The lesson is one of total reliance on God's grace. In God alone is our salvation, and in Him alone can we trust. Without the searing experiences she underwent, I doubt she would ever have written the great spiritual masterpieces which still guide thousands of devout souls who seek perfection. While, in all probability, we will never write great spiritual treatises, we can imitate her humility and total abandonment to the loving purifications of our God. No one ever succeeded in following Christ without also accepting His Cross. When we accept that fact, we will know joy even as God leads us through fire.

- Msgr. Paul Whitmore
(smartins@frontiernet.net)