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Pope Francis Catechesis 16
Saint Peter’s Square – Wednesday, 7 June 2023
Luke (15:4) Jesus addressed this parable. “What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?e And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.f
Catechesis. The passion for evangelization: the apostolic zeal of the believer. 16. Witnesses: Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, patroness of the missions
Dear brothers and sisters,
Here before us are the relics of St Thérèse of the Child Jesus, universal patroness of the missions. It is beautiful that this should happen as we reflect on the passion for evangelization, on apostolic zeal. Today, therefore, let us allow ourselves to be helped by the witness of St Therese. ‘You were born 150 years ago, and on this anniversary I intend to dedicate an Apostolic Letter to you’.
St Thérèse of the Child Jesus is patroness of the missions, but she never went on a mission: how do you explain this?
She was a Carmelite nun and her life was marked by smallness and weakness: she herself called herself “a little grain of sand”. She died of poor health at the age of 24.
But if her body was sick, her heart was alive, she was a missionary.
In her “Diary” she says that her desire was being a missionary and that she wanted to be one, not just for a few years, but for her whole life, in fact until the end of the world. Teresa was the spiritual sister of several missionaries: from the convent she accompanied them with her letters, with her prayer and with her offering constant sacrifices for them. Without appearing, she interceded for the missions, like an engine that, hidden, gives a vehicle the strength to move forward. However, she was often not understood by the Sisters: she had “more thorns than roses” from them, but she accepted everything with love, with patience, offering, together with the illness, also judgments and misunderstandings. And she did it with joy, she did it for the needs of the Church, so that, as she said, “roses would be scattered over everyone”, especially on the most distant.
But now, I wonder, can we ask ourselves, where does all this zeal, this missionary strength and this joy of intercession come from?
Two episodes that took place before Teresa entered the convent help us to understand.
The first is the day that changed her life, Christmas 1886, when God worked a miracle in her heart. Teresa would soon be 14 years old. As the youngest daughter, she was spoiled by everyone at home, but she was not “badly brought up”.
Returning from midnight Mass, the father, very tired, did not want to attend the opening of his daughter’s gifts and said: “Thank goodness it’s the last year!”, because at 15 they were already gone.
Teresa, very sensitive and easily moved to tears, was hurt and went into her room and cried. But she quickly wiped away her tears, came down and, full of joy, she cheered her father. What had happened? On that Christmas night, when Jesus had made himself weak out of love, she had become strong of heart – a true miracle.
In a few moments she had left the prison of her selfishness and her weeping over herself and she began to feel that “love had entered her heart with the need to forget herself” (cf. Manuscript Acts, 133-134).
From then on she turned her zeal to others so that they might find God and instead of seeking consolation for herself she proposed to “console Jesus, [to] make souls love him”, because – Teresa noted – “Jesus is sick with love and […] the sickness with love can only be cured by love” (Letter to Marie Guérin, July 1890).
Here then is the purpose of all her days: “to make Jesus loved” (Letter to Céline, 15 October 1889), to intercede so that others might love him.
She wrote: “I would like to save souls and forget myself for them: I would like to save them even after my death” (Letter to Fr. Roullan, 19 March 1897).
Several times she said, “I will spend my heaven doing good on earth.”
This is the first episode that changed her life at the age of 14.
And this zeal of hers was directed above all to sinners, to the “distant”.
The second episode reveals it.
Teresa learns of a criminal condemned to death for terrible crimes. His name was Enrico Pranzini. She writes the name. He is considered guilty of the brutal murder of three people, and he is destined for the guillotine. But does not want to receive the comforts of faith. Teresa tool him to her heart and did all she could. She prays in every way for his conversion, so that she who, with fraternal compassion, called Pranzini a “poor wretch”, may have a small sign of repentance and make room for God’s mercy, in which Teresa trusted blindly. The execution takes place.
The next day Teresa read in the newspaper that Pranzini, just before putting his head on the scaffold, “suddenly, seized by a sudden inspiration, turned, took a crucifix that the priest offered to him and kisses the Sacred Wounds of Jesus three times”.
The saint comments: “Then his soul went to receive the merciful judgment of Him who declared that in Heaven there will be more joy for a single sinner who does penance than for ninety-nine righteous people who do not need penance!” (Manuscript A, 135).
Brothers and sisters, this is the power of intercession moved by charity, this is the motor of mission. In fact the missionaries of whom Teresa is patroness, are not only those who go a long way, learn new languages, do good works and are good at proclaiming. No. A missionary is also one who lives, where he or she is, as an instrument of God’s love; it is the one who does everything so that, through his or her witness, his or her prayer, his or her intercession, Jesus may pass by.
And this is apostolic zeal which, let us always remember, never works through proselytism – never! – or by coercion – never! – but by attraction.
Faith is born by attraction. One does not become a Christian because someone forces him or her. No. But because he or she is touched by love.
The Church, in the face of so many means, methods and structures that sometimes distract from the essential, needs hearts like Teresa’s, hearts that attract love and bring us closer to God.
And let us ask the saint – we have the relics here – let us ask the saint for the grace to overcome our selfishness and let us ask for the passion to intercede so that this attraction may be greater in the people and so that Jesus may be known and loved.
