“I always desire to be a saint, but poor me! I always found comparing myself with the saints, that among then and I exist the same difference that there is between a mountain whose summit is lost in the sky. Far from being discouraged, I said to myself: The Good God does not have unrealizalbe dreams, then despite my smallness, I can aspire to holiness.”

I know we are in January; October already passed, it is not the day of St. Teresa of the Child Jesus, but I want to begin with this her writing because it is her spirituality that in this time has helped me in search of holiness.

As she, I see myself limited and small, however, I am not without hope, once that my hope is not that I am able to make the reach for Heaven, but rather only in the love and mercy of the Lord.

Many times we make the mistake thinking that our acts, our piety, strength and mission can save the world and we ourselvs…big mistake! There exists a serious risk in thinking in this way. The risk of losing ourselves in the works wanting to do always more and putting ourselves in the place of God. We are the saviors of the country, alone, necessary, without substitute alarming to the four winds—in the era of Twitter and Facebook—the marvels that we realize in the name of the Lord: “Yes, for the glory of God and in the name of God. But who make me! The truth is that anything, it is enough that the Lord wants it! He is the Savior, it is He that carries on His shoulders the weight of the sins of humanity, not I! I am not saying that here we should be comfortable and do nothing, but our acts should be only a response to the love of God an overflow of gratitude.

This is the road of holiness for little souls, it is thus that they teach us the Teresas of the Child Jesus with her “little way” and she of Calcutta, that without hoping for recompense loved the poor in each second of life and teaches us: “It is not that we do not how much we want, but how much we love puts us to that which we do.”

Then enjoy this beginning of the year, let us renew our projects assuming our condition and with humility, throw ourselves in this school of holiness that is the love: Our gestures, in seeing, in telephoning, in a message, in a smile, in a word, in the dishwasher, in the heated meal, in the simple things of our day to day, for as Dom Helder Câmara: “Life is to learn to love!”

Andréia Taisa de Moura Camargos ( Déia)

Missionary from the Canção Nova Community.

translated from Portuguese