INVITATION TO ASK GOD FOR HIS SANCTIFICATION GRACE
There was an old man who bought a one-week Cruise ticket. He brought with him cooked-rice and sesame salt on board.
At mealtime, when every one came to enjoy different delicious Seafood dishes, this old man quietly came back to his room, closed the door, and ate his cooked-rice with sesame salt.
Everyone felt strange yet thought that he got allergy to seafood.
Till the last day of the journey, a young man was brave himself enough to approach the old man and curiously asked: Why did you eat only this cooked-rice and sesame salt? Do you get some kind of diseases that made you restrict from seafood?
The old man answered: I am not sick but I am too poor to afford for myself such delicious seafood dishes; though I am dying for those foods.
The young man then said: Oh, Sir! The ticket you bought already including the food and every entertainments they served on board. Unfortunately, it’s now time to leave the board.
The old piteous man felt so sorry for his ignorance. It is too late to taste the different delicious seafood dishes and enjoy pleasures on board.
God said to us:
Be holy as your Holy Heavenly Father (Mt 5:48)
Since we were born, God granted us many chances to be holy, i.e., to become saint.
Do not like the old man in the above story who himself missed the opportunity to enjoy what he was supposed to have due his Cruise trip.
St.Therese the Child Jesus before entering the Carmel Convent at Lisieux was an ordinary girl yet she had been longing to become a saint. She entered the convent with a firm determination to become a saint.
With God’s Grace, she had found for herself a quickest and easiest way to become saint, which is called the Little Spiritual Way or the Little Way Love. She practiced this Little Way and had succeeded. It was only a few years latter she was acknowledged as a Doctor of the Church by practicing such a Loving Little Way.
Let’s ask for God’s Sanctification Grace and make it as a goal for our life.
Asking for God’s Sanctification Grace helps as to take easy in everything of this earthly world: money, power, position … are things which usually bring to people hurt.
Asking for God’s Sanctification Grace is a goal that helps us to take lightly even endure sufferings, sufferings which one rather dodge than to encounter in.
Asking for God’s Sanctification Grace is a goal that helps us always having peace and happiness.
In order to become a Doctor, we have to take an entrance exam into the Medical University. There we have to be trained in theory, in experimental, and have to pass qualified tests to graduate from such study.
In order to become a Saint, we have to enter a Convent, an Institute, a Congregation, … to study the secret of being Saint, together we practice those secrets and have to be tested by challenges in order to anneal our determination to become saint.
We invite each of you to join our Family of St. Therese the Child Jesus, together we anneal our daily life and together we strive for being saint just like St. Therese.
Joining the Family of St. Therese, you all are invited and guided to study carefully the way to become saint of St. Therese. Her method of being saint is very easy and everybody can practice, i.e., ‘Doing simple thing with great love.’ This is the key master, the crucial point of the Little Way of Love. Everyone has his/her simple things to do in any single daily life situation; if each of us does these simple things with our wholehearted, our doings make us saint.
Joining the Family of St. Therese, we will all receive God’s Grace for the Family of S. Therese was acknowledged by the local Church’s Archbishop John G. Vlazny, Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, US ; and Bishop Nguyễn Văn Nhơn, Dalat Diocese Vietnam has also acknowledged The Family of Saint Therese in his Diocese.
The Family of St. Therese is a Big Family, wherein God is the Housemaster, St. Therese the Child Jesus is the Steward and each member is the servant. Who do we serve? We serve God in the Elderly.
While we serve with St. Therese’s method, each of us has a chance to become saint.
What is the meaning of becoming saint?
To become saint is to know how to act in every life situation as a saint.
Before a situation, we are able to act in accord with the following three ways:
1. Behave as a man/woman.
2. Behave under the evil influence.
3. Behave in accordance with God’s words as a saint.
Let us use the story of St. Therese when she works together with others at the laundry of the Convent as an example.
Therese wrote in the Story of a Soul:
Another time, washing handkerchiefs in the laundry opposite a Sister who kept on splashing me with dirty water, I was tempted to set back and wipe my face to show her that I would be obliged if she would be more careful. But why be foolish enough to refuse treasures offered so generously? I took care to hide my exasperation.
I tried hard to enjoy being splashed with my dirty water, and by the end of half an hour, I had acquired a real taste for this novel form of aspersion. How fortunate to find this spot where such treasures were being given away! I would come back as often as I could.
When dirty water sprinkle over our faces, we are likely behave in three ways:
1. As an ordinary person: dodge those dirty water, fell anonymously and remind the one who sprinkle dirty water stop to do that.
2. As someone who was under the influence of devil: get angry; and think of paying back.
3. As a saint: happy receive those dirty water and consider them as the shower of God’s Grace watering over us, feeling more love to the one who sprinkle those dirty water over you.
The love which moves the person to perform these acts bravely:
Case 1: There is no love or, if there is, rare.
Case 2: there is only hatred.
Case 3: there is only Love, full of Grace.
If we are always aware of, we are able to have behaviors with the love of a saint, just like St. Therese at any situation of our life.
How to acquire such a LOVE in order to behave as a Saint?
The easiest way is: to implore God.
Right at the time the Priest invokes the Holy Spirit comes down upon the bread and wine, the consecrated bread and wine through the transformed power of the Spirit, become God’s Flesh and Blood. Let’s us kneel down, open our mind and heart and with all your strong faith, ask God transform us into His saints.
Entering the Family of St. Therese the Child Jesus in order to become Therese little flowers in the world.
Deacon John Maria Teresa Vũ Thành An.
First Sunday, Nov 28, 2010