There’s a tendency in the human heart to strive for excellence and to seek the highest honours. Yet there is also a kind of spiritual malaise, a species of discouragement, that can follow when our ambitions encounter the ordinary limits of our lives. The soul imagines the great things it might do, then slowly loses heart on recognising that the most glorious tasks will be entrusted to only a few. Few of us will become a pope like Pope St John Paul II or a king like St Louis IX.
In the wake of St Thérèse of Lisieux’s feast day, I have felt compelled to emphasise one key point that this entire view, and the pride it betrays, misses. God’s ways are not our ways. Practically speaking, the smallest good deeds done with the greatest love can be the greatest deeds.
