Email from Walking with Purpose

October 1, 2020

St. Therese of Lisieux was gifted with the ability to take the riches of our Catholic faith and explain them in a
way that a child could imitate. The wisdom she gleaned from Scripture ignited a love in her heart for her Lord
that was personal and transforming.

There is good reason St. Therese is the patron saint of Walking with Purpose. Like St. Therese, "The Little
Flower," our way to the heart of Jesus is not by means of heavy theology or superior head knowledge. The
WWP way has always been, and will always be, love. We are, quite simply, a ministry of Jesus Christ, whose
desire is to speak to women's hearts no matter where they are in life. No matter where you are or where
you've been on the journey, we hope to gently introduce you to the truths that can change your life.

Have you experienced a heart set on fire with love for God through Walking with Purpose? Please share your
testimony with us or comment on our social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. 

We are praying for you on this feast day of our patron saint; that like a little flower, we all open our hearts to
God, allowing His love to transform us in unimaginable ways. St. Therese of Lisieux, pray for us!

Blessings in Christ,
The WWP Team

Research from a parishioner at St. Thomas Aquinas on St. Thérèse of Lisieux (found on Wikipedia) …

The "little way"

 
Thérèse entered the Carmel of Lisieux with the determination to become a saint. However, by the end of
1894, six years as a Carmelite made her realize how small and insignificant she felt. She saw the limitations of
all her efforts. She remained small and very far off from the unfailing love that she would wish to practice. She
is said to have understood then that it was from insignificance that she had to learn to ask God's help. Along
with her camera, Céline had brought notebooks with her, passages from the Old Testament, which Thérèse
did not have in Carmel. (The Louvain Bible, the translation authorized for French Catholics, did not include the
Old Testament). In the notebooks Thérèse found a passage from Proverbs that struck her with particular force:
"Whosoever is a little one, let him come to me" (9:4).
 
She was struck by another passage from the Book of Isaiah: "you shall be carried at the breasts, and upon the
knees they shall caress you.As one whom the mother caresseth, so will I comfort you."66:12–13 She
concluded that Jesus would carry her to the summit of sanctity. The smallness of Thérèse, her limits, became
in this way grounds for joy, rather than discouragement. Not until Manuscript C of her autobiography did she
give this discovery the name of little way, "petite voie".[70]
 
I will seek out a means of getting to Heaven by a little way—very short and very straight little way that is
wholly new. We live in an age of inventions; nowadays the rich need not trouble to climb the stairs, they have
lifts instead. Well, I mean to try and find a lift by which I may be raised unto God, for I am too tiny to climb the
steep stairway of perfection. [...] Thine Arms, then, O Jesus, are the lift which must raise me up even unto
Heaven. To get there I need not grow. On the contrary, I must remain little, I must become still less.[67]
 
In her quest for sanctity and in order to attain holiness and to express her love of God, she believed that it
was not necessary to accomplish heroic acts or great deeds.[71] She wrote, Love proves itself by deeds, so
how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering
flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions
for love.
 
The little way of Therese is the foundation of her spirituality.[72] Within the Catholic Church Thérèse's way was
known for some time as "the little way of spiritual childhood,"[73][71][74][75][76] but Thérèse actually wrote
"little way" only three times,[70] and she never wrote the phrase "spiritual childhood." It was her sister
Pauline who, after Thérèse's death, adopted the phrase "the little way of spiritual childhood" to interpret
Thérèse's path.[77] Years after Thérèse's death, a Carmelite of Lisieux asked Pauline about this phrase and
Pauline answered spontaneously "But you know well that Thérèse never used it! It is mine." In May 1897,
Thérèse wrote to Father Adolphe Roulland, "My way is all confidence and love." To Maurice Bellière she
wrote, "and I, with my way, will do more than you, so I hope that one day Jesus will make you walk by the
same way as me."
 
Sometimes, when I read spiritual treatises in which perfection is shown with a thousand obstacles, surrounded
by a crowd of illusions, my poor little mind quickly tires. I close the learned book which is breaking my head
and drying up my heart, and I take up Holy Scripture. Then all seems luminous to me; a single word uncovers
for my soul infinite horizons; perfection seems simple; I see that it is enough to recognize one's nothingness
and to abandon oneself, like a child, into God's arms. Leaving to great souls, to great minds, the beautiful
books I cannot understand, I rejoice to be little because only children, and those who are like them, will be
admitted to the heavenly banquet.[citation needed]