We must find our talents and use them as a vocation to please God by applying ourselves diligently to make use of what we have as a mechanism of giving glory to God.
Today little baby Charbel is 6 months old. He has never left the hospital and doctors hold little hope for him.
On Saturday, his grandmother asked me to contact the Tyburn Nuns to ask for prayers. These nuns devote themselves to a contemplative life in adoring the Blessed Eucharist, taking turns to ensure that there is at least one nun in contemplation of the Blessed Sacrament, which is displayed in the Monstrance 24 hours a day.
These wonderful nuns promised to join with us in praying for the healing of baby Charbel and to ask that Blessed Carlo Acutis, who also adored Christ hidden in the Eucharist as his “highway to Heaven”, to intercede for us in asking God to work a miracle for this child and heal him.
Perhaps to some, it may seem a small life, praying to the Hidden Christ on a roster throughout the entire day and throughout the entire night.
I have been reading Saint Therese of Lisieux’s autobiography, called, “Story of a Soul”. In it this great and powerful Saint spends much time writing about her littleness, her smallness, her relative uselessness without the Love of God.
I suppose that it is easy to assume, after reading this text or hearing about these nuns, that the message we should take from these is to make our lives small, meaningless in the world, in living in the smallest way. After all Saint Therese herself, and most of her siblings, became cloistered religious. The Tyburn nuns devote themselves to a life of prayer in a convent.
Surely there is nothing smaller than a life lived in isolation from the world?
And yet, I wonder…
Do they live a small life? Did God make Saint Therese of Lisieux a Saint by asking her to do less by being small?
I think it is rather the opposite.
God called Saint Therese of Lisieux, the Tyburn nuns, and all of us, in fact, to be large – not small!
Our duty in this life – our very obligation, is to live a large life making the greatest possible use of whatever talents we have so as to give glory to God.
If God Himself allowed our souls to be born onto this Earth, if He specifically chose us as the lucky few who would live on Earth before we died, then surely God himself deserves to make use for us and we have a duty – an obligation – to comply.
Though Saint Therese talks often of her small contribution, her sanctity was established by the GREATNESS, the LARGENESS of her efforts.
What talents she had, she used well to please God.
If we have some talent in teaching, we should – we MUST – teach.
If we have some talent in leadership, we should – we MUST – lead.
If we have some talent in acting, we should – we MUST – act.
If we have some talent in sports, we should – we MUST – play sport.
In essence we are called to participate, even if that participation causes us some discomfort.
We are called to plant our seeds on fertile soil – God will do the rest.
We have a duty to find whatever it is that we are talented at, whatever it is that comes easily to us, and we have a DUTY to do it! That duty is our vocation – and it is a solemn obligation between us and God.
How wonderful the world would be if we all could live as courageously as SMALL SOULS, giving of ourselves COMPLETELY to God’s own hands by finding our VOCATIONS? How wonderful the world would be if we were brave enough to ACKNOWLEDGE the talents that God has given us, and use those talents – all of them – to give glory to God in our lives?
There is such Grace in this for us, because with prayer everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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