Therese Of Lisieux
Therese Of Lisieux Quotes about God
I felt it better to speak to God than about Him.
Time is but a shadow, a dream; already God sees us in glory and takes joy in our eternal beatitude. How this thought helps my soul! I understand then why He lets us suffer.
Remember that nothing is small in the eyes of God. Do all that you do with love.
The greatest honor God can do a soul is not give it much; but to ask much of it.
How I loved the feasts!.... I especially loved the processions in honor of the Blessed Sacrament. What a joy it was for me to throw flowers beneath the feet of God!... I was never so happy as when I saw my roses touch the sacred Monstrance.
For one pain endured with joy, we shall love the good God more forever.
(Whispered to a novice while standing in front of the convent library) Oh! I would have been sorry to have read all those books...If I had read them, I would have broken my head, and I would have wasted precious time that I could have employed very simply in loving God.
A heart given to God loses none of its natural tenderness; on the contrary, the more pure and divine it becomes, the more such tenderness increases.
The loveliest masterpiece of the heart of God is the love of a Mother.
Trying to do good to people without God's help is no easier than making the sun shine at midnight. You discover that you've got to abandon all your own preferences, your own bright ideas, and guide souls along the road our Lord has marked out for them. You mustn't coerce them into some path of your own choosing.
It has a supernatural grandeur which expands the soul and unites it with God. I say an Our Father or a Hail Mary when I feel so spiritually barren that I cannot summon up a single worthwhile thought. These two prayers fill me with rapture and feed and satisfy my soul.
You heard me, only Friend whom I love. To ravish my heart, you became man. You shed your blood, what a supreme mystery!... And you still live for me on the Altar. If I cannot see the brilliance of your Face Or hear your sweet voice, O my God, I can live by your grace, I can rest on your Sacred Heart!
God has made me desire always what he most wants to give me.
If a little flower could speak, it seems to me that it would tell us quite simply all that God has done for it, without hiding any of its gifts. It would not, under the pretext of humility, say that it was not pretty, or that it had not a sweet scent, that the sun had withered its petals, or the storm bruised its stem, if it knew that such were not the case.
How can the good God Who loves us so much, be happy when we suffer? Never does our suffering make Him happy; but it is necessary for us, and so He sends it to us while, as it were, turning away His Face. . . I assure you that it costs Him dearly to fill us with bitterness.
It is only love which makes us acceptable to God.
For me, prayer means launching out of the heart towards God; it means lifting up one's eyes, quite simply, to heaven, a cry of grateful love, from the crest of joy or the trough of despair; it's a vast, supernatural force which opens out my heart, and binds me close to Jesus.
Holiness consists simply in doing God's will, and being just what God wants us to be.
He is not far off; He is there, very close. He is looking at us, and He is begging this sorrow, this agony from us. He needs it for souls and for our soul... Alas, it does pain Him to give us sorrows to drink, but He knows this is the only means of preparing us to know Him as He knows Himself and to become God's ourselves.
Everything is a grace, everything is the direct effect of our Father's love - difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul's miseries, her burdens, her needs - everything, because through them, she learns humility, realizes her weakness. Everything is a grace because everything is God's gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events - to the heart that loves, all is well.
God would never inspire me with desires which cannot be realized; so in spite of my littleness, I can hope to be a saint.
(Her last words) Oh! I love Him! My God, I love You!
The good God would not inspire unattainable desires.
Since the age of three I have refused God nothing.
God would turn the world around to find suffering in order to give it to a soul upon whom He has set His Divine gaze with ineffable love.