Joy in Suffering: According to St. Therese of the Child Jesus

Bishop A. A. Noser, Editor. This small book is a Novena of nine days of prayers and instructions, in the saint's own words. The book is guaranteed to make the reader view suffering in a positive light.

 

To our modern world that views suffering as an evil to be conquered at all costs, Therese writes, "Far from complaining to our Lord of the cross which He sends us, I cannot fathom the infinite love which has led Him to treat us this way. . . . What a favor from Jesus, and how He must love us to send us so great a sorrow! Eternity will not be long enough to bless Him for it! . . . Never does our suffering make Him happy, but it is necessary for us; and so He sends it to us while, as it were, turning away His face. . . . I assure you that it costs Him dearly to fill us with bitterness."

 

Suffering serves three functions, according to St. Therese:

 

a. Suffering is proof of our love for God. "Under the pressure of pain, I prove my love by test divine!"

 

b. Suffering brings us to union with God.  Sufferings "greatly  help to detach us from this earth, they make us look higher than this world. . . tomorrow, in a brief hour, we shall be at rest."

 

c. Suffering can ransom souls. "From the day He raised His standard of the Cross, all must fight and win in its shadow. Far more by suffering and persecution than by eloquent discourses does Jesus wish to build up His Kingdom." Every cross is a "mine of gold for us to turn to account."

 

For St. Therese, everything can be turned to our good if done for love of God. "Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them. . .  Through our little acts of charity practiced in the dark, as it were, we obtain the conversion of the heathen, help the missionaries and gain for them plentiful alms, thus building both spiritual and material dwellings for our Eucharistic Lord."

 

Joy in Suffering also explores Therese's devotion to the Blessed Mother, her threefold martyrdom of spirit, soul, and body and her threefold loves of God, neighbor and self. The reader learns of her "spiritual armor" and her ability to live in the present and to see God in all that happened to her. The book is well worth its minimal cost. Rarely does one find so much spiritual insight and practical help in so small a volume.