Day Fifteen
Fear is the enemy’s great weapon. Peace is our Savior’s great gift. The enemy sowed fear in Eve’s mind by lying to her. “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in this wonderful garden?” God had said no such thing, but notice how old hairy legs sowed doubt and fear in Eve’s mind. If she couldn’t trust her God and Father, then the paradise he provided for her becomes a sinister, dangerous place. It is that kind of fear—that there is no God, or that he is indifferent or angry with us, and that our lives are nothing more than random chemical reactions and blind physical forces. That is the enemy’s lie that has gained the ascendent in our own time, and that is why so many people are so fearful today.
The truth is that nature is beautifully ordered, and that God’s benevolence provides for us. Fear is the mark of the enemy, and peace is the mark of God. “Peace I leave with you” Jesus said just before going to his own agonizing death. “I give you peace even in the worst afflictions, because resurrection follows death as surely as day follows night.”
In today’s reading, Thérèse read the frightening obituary of Sr. Marie from Luçon, who offered herself as a victim soul to divine justice. Thérèse thanked God for people who could suffer like that, but at the same time she thought there was something imbalanced in Sr. Marie’s last words: “I don’t have enough merits, I must acquire more of them!” That smells like Pelagianism and Jansenism, among other errors. Thérèse knew that “all is grace” and that she was not “big enough” to bear the weight of divine justice. She would have to settle instead for divine mercy. “How GOOD is the Lord, his MERCY endures forever!” she wrote. “God would be feared by none …. And through love, not fear, no one would cause him any pain.” In the next few days, we will see how Thérèse, rather than becoming a victim soul to divine anger, consecrated herself to divine love.
Prayer
Come, Holy Spirit, fire of mercy. Fill me with Merciful Love so that, through it, I may see all of God’s perfections, including his justice, as clothed in love.