Loved into Holiness

In his book Everything is Grace: The Life and Way of Thérèse of Lisieux, Joseph F. Schmidt remarks that St. Thérèse possessed a “desire to become a great saint by being loved into holiness by divine love” (103).

Loved into holiness... Isn't that beautiful? It is God's love that makes us saints. Certainly we must accept and cooperate with that love, but ultimately our Lord's great love for us is what will immerse us in holiness.

But how? How can we experience this kind of love and the sanctity that arises from it?

First, we must pray to recognize God's love. God's love is all around us. Our very existence is a product of God's love. Every blessing we have comes from God's love. Even every trial we face arises from God's love as He seeks to purify and teach us and to allow us to share in His suffering. Every sunrise, every sunset, every flower, every friend, every creature should remind us that God loves us. If He didn't, nothing would exist at all. We must recall, too, that our Lord suffered and died for us. He chose to experience a torturous death on the cross that He might free us from our sins and open the gates of Heaven. Now that's love.

Second, we must bask in God's love. We must keep God's love before our eyes, remembering it, feeling its warmth, enjoying its beauty. If it is a marvelous thing to be truly loved by another person, how much more amazing is it to be loved by the Creator of the universe? How much more amazing is it to be loved by the Savior Who died for us?

Third, we must allow God's love to transform our minds and hearts. God's love can tame our sour, critical, cynical, even nasty attitudes and thoughts and give our minds and hearts a more peaceful, cheerful, kind, even joyful outlook. If we ask Him to do this, He will, but we must be willing to let go and give His love a chance to work wonders in the very depths of our being.

Finally, we must allow God's love to act through us. If our minds and hearts have been transformed by God's love, we will find it much easier, with the help of God's grace, to act with love, to truly desire the best for other people and to do everything we can to help them attain that best. God will use us as His instruments to spread His divine love to others that they, too, may recognize it, bask in it, be transformed by it, and eventually live it.

Thus we become loved into holiness by God's great love...just like St. Thérèse.