“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.”
(Saint Augustine).
Three years before Saint Therese of Lisieux was born into her family, her sister, Hélène Martin, died after a brief and sudden illness. At the time of her death, Hélène was just 5 years old.
I recently read a letter written by the girls’ mother, Zélie, to her brother following the death of her child Hélène…
“After the doctor left, I looked at her sadly, her eyes were dull, there wasn’t any more life in them, and I began to cry. Then she put her two little arms around me and consoled me the best she could. All day she had been saying to me, ‘My poor little mother’s been crying!’… She looked at a bottle of medicine the doctor had prescribed and wanted to drink it, saying that when she had drank it all, she would be cured. Then, around a quarter to ten, she said to me, ‘Yes, in a moment, I’m going to be cured, yes, soon…’ At that moment, while I was holding her, her little head fell onto my shoulder, her eyes closed; then five minutes later she didn’t exist anymore… I didn’t expect such a sudden end, nor did my husband. When he came home and saw his poor little daughter dead, he began to sob, crying, ‘My little Hélène! My little Hélène!’ Then together we offered her to God.”
And I have been reflecting on the grief of this mother and father as they wept for their little dead girl and offered her to God. For they relied on God and on His strength – not their own…
It is as though – through their actions and their grief and their offering – they truly lived the words of Isaiah… “O Lord, be gracious to us; we wait for thee. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble.” (Isaiah 33:2).
Saints Zelie and Louis Martin had nine children, six of whom survived infancy, and then, after losing Hélène during her childhood, their five surviving daughters became nuns. And it is obvious to me that such an outcome is surely the result of great Grace. And such a Grace is surely attained through the intercession of such souls as that of little Hélène…
Only with such Grace could such souls such as these cannonised Saints – Zélie and her husband Louis – understand the spirituality communicated by Saint Augustine of Hippo, the famous doctor of the Church, who wrote, “Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.”
Because this is the path to sanctity… This dependence – on God and on the work at hand…
And in understanding this, such sanctity can be attained, because, as Don Fernando Ocariz (the Prelate of Opus Dei) said, “We want our life to always be a new song, a song of today and now,
of always beginning again, in which we can put the lyrics, but the music has to be put by Our Lord, through the Virgin. May she help us put on this new song, this renewed hope to do the work that the Lord has placed in our hands.”
For there was hope as well in the sorrow of these parents who were called to the work of burying their child and continuing in their lives. And their hope was in the offering of their child to God. And upon reflection – that seems a very extraordinary thing indeed…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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