“One must know how to take [God] by the heart; this is His weak side…” (St. Therese of the Child Jesus).
Today we come across a wonderful phrase from St. Therese of Lisieux, a saint characterized by her particular tenderness and simplicity. She advises us to take our Father to heart, that is, to appeal to His love for us and ours for Him.
This is indeed a royal path, because in this way we touch God in our hearts. How can our Heavenly Father be taken away from us if we seek Him moved by love and trustingly lean on His love?
Undoubtedly, this is what He wants from us. In the message to Mother Eugenia Ravasio, our Father speaks on one occasion about a false respect that people show Him, and says:
“This false respect (…) is a wound you cause to the most sensitive part of My Heart; you are forgetting, scorning, My fatherly love for you”.
If we apply these words to our meditation today, we will conclude that, conversely, if we show Him true reverence and love, we will be able to recognize our Father as He is and acquire the correct image of Him: our most loving Father.
Then we will have reached the center of His heart and will even be able to console Him. Indeed, God wants to give us this free access to His Heart so that we can draw from it all the love and all that He has prepared for our journey. We have discovered the “weak side” of God and He will never close it to us.
St. Therese once said that she wanted to be love in the heart of the Church. Perhaps we can also say that we want to be consolation in the heart of our Father.