She was a completely normal girl, without any grace or extraordinary gift, known personally by few people because she died very young, also because her life was only spent inside her home and inside the Carmelite convent. However, a few years after her death, her autobiography, Story of a Soul, was published, and her words have been a source of restoration for the story of many other souls. She was declared a doctor of the Church because her example transformed the way holiness is perceived and understood today.

St. Thérèse's spiritual path, which is known as "The Little Way," presents the possibility of growing in holiness in such a simple way that any believer can follow and put into practice, regardless of his or her vocation or spiritual level. It is the way to reencounter our spiritual childhood: to become children in the presence of God the Father, that is, to be dependent, to be filled with hope and to be excited to receive the gifts prepared for us. In her own words, "Jesus deigned to show me the way that leads to that divine furnace, and that way is the surrender of the little child who sleeps without fear in his father's arms". St. Thérèse understood in depth that the beginning and the end of the spiritual life is grace. Grace is divine love that is undeserved, that is to say, we cannot obtain it as merit because if it were so, we would never attain it; we can cooperate and respond to God's love, but ultimately the grace received is the beginning and the end of our spiritual life.

Because of her spiritual journey, today we can repeat and remember that a holy life can be lived through small and ordinary acts done with great love. This "little great saint" has reminded us that the most insignificant and silent daily acts, or invisible and little "heroic" sacrifices, lived with humility and love are enough to grow in holiness and please God immensely. The heart of this Little Way is the prudence to discern what love asks of us in each situation. Love is the form that each and every virtue takes: this was the great inspiration that opened the doors to her true vocation. In the words of St. Therese "Jesus, my beloved, I have found my vocation: I will be love in the heart of the Church", and this is what her Little Way is all about. Bishop R. Barron pointed out that the holiness of which St. Therese exemplified is prudence transfigured: prudence is moral wisdom, so the Little Way is prudence being elevated and transfigured by the radicality of love for Christ.

Another of the great contributions we received from this Little Way was a renewal of what is known as the universality of grace: St. Thérèse uses a very powerful image to describe this concept by saying that she is not like the great saints of the Church, who are like trees in the middle of a forest. She conceives of herself as a little flower in that forest, who like the trees receives and is nourished by the light of the sun. That is what the universality of grace is all about: we all receive it no matter how big or small we are because just as the sun rises for the good and the bad, so does grace bathe us no matter who we are.

In spite of living and exemplifying these valuable lights for the life of faith, this saint also experienced a great spiritual darkness. God allowed her to feel what many souls who are distant and separated from Him feel: doubt. St. Thérèse experienced the impossibility of believing that there is a Heaven at the end of this walk on earth, she suffered the doubt of whether it is worth the effort to live the Christian truths and virtues... This spiritual darkness through which thousands of souls wander, in which the presence and comfort of God is not felt, was also experienced by St. Thérèse. This spiritual desert lasted until the end of her life.

Thérèse interpreted this spiritual struggle as sharing in the pain and sorrow of so many contemporary people who had lost faith in God; she understood that her darkness was an invitation to live and experience firsthand what many suffer when far from the embrace of the Father. However, he never gave up on his vocation nor did he give up on his life of grace. A few weeks before his death he wrote the following words in this regard: "This trial was not to last for days or weeks, it will not be extinguished until the hour appointed by God himself, and that hour has not yet arrived".
      
In this month of October in which we celebrate the feast of this "little great saint," let us ask her to help us open our hearts to the grace that God wants to pour into our personal history and our daily lives. In addition, let us ask her intercession for someone who is going through a spiritual desert or who is immersed in the darkness of doubt.

St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, teach us to abandon ourselves as children in the arms of the Father, amen.