Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Week of St Teresa of Avila

St Teresa praises God for the marvels of His grace that unabled her to do all the works. She admits that on her own she could do nothing. What a great humility.


O my Lord! What a shame it is to see so much wickedness and to tell about some grains of sand, which even then I didn't lift from the ground for Your service, since everything I did was enveloped in a thousand miseries!.
The waters of Your grace didn't flow yet under these grains of sand in order to raise them up. O my Creator! Who could find among so many evils something of substance to relate, since I am telling about the great favours I've received from You! So it is, my Lord, that I don't know how my heart can bear it or how anyone who reads this can fail to abhor me in observing that such marvelous favours were so poorly repaid and that I have no shame, in the end, to recount these services as my own. Yes, I am ashamed, my Lord; but having nothing else to tell about the part I played makes me speak of such lowly beginning so that anyone who did great things in the beginning may have hope; since it seems the Lord has taken my early actions into account. He will do so more with theirs. May it please His Majesty to give me grace so that I might not always remain at the beginning, amen. (Life 31:25).