Spiritual Childhood

Fr. Marie Eugene tirelessly spread the spiritual teaching of Therese in very varied milieu:

 

She is, for us, a spiritual teacher above all.  Modestly but surely she taught us her “little way” so that we may learn to trust and abandon ourselves, after having revealed to us something of what she herself discovered in the Blessed Trinity—that blazing furnace of love which is Substantial Love, the Holy Spirit.”  

What is the 'Little Way'?

"The more one is weak and without deisres or virtues, the more apt one is for the operation of consuming and transforming love," wrote Therese.

Venerable Fr. Marie Eugene comments on it: "Littleness on all levels is the aptitude for receiving God... The spiritual is incarnated in the little. God grants his favors to the simple and to the little... If you want to attract grace, develop humility."

From this we see the deep link between holiness and a poverty that is totally accepted:  “When the soul is completely poor,” explains
Fr. Marie Eugene, “she goes towards God, and God rushes towards her” with all the riches of His gifts.

 

Holiness consists in a state of poverty in which at every instant one is obliged to ask everything from the Holy Spirit.”

It is the attitude of the child which confidently abandons itself into the arms of its parents. The little way of Therese, also called the way of spiritual childhood, “is not a way reserved for the perfect. The way of childhood is open to all souls,” affirms Fr. Marie Eugene.