The Elevator to Heaven

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The Elevator to Heaven

St Therese of Lisieux
You know that I have always wanted to be a Saint; but compared with real Saints, I know perfectly well that I am no more like them than a grain of sand trodden beneath the feet of passers-by is like a mountain with its summit lost in the clouds.Instead of allowing this to discourage me, I say to myself: ‘God would never inspire me with desires which cannot be realized; so, in spite of my littleness, I can hope to be a Saint. I could never grow up. I must put up with myself as I am, full of imperfections, but I will find a little way to Heaven, very short and direct, an entirely new way.
Thérèse speaks of finding an elevator, a shortcut to Jesus, as it were, for she feels she is
too little to climb the steep stairway to perfection.
In searching the Scriptures for this shortcut, this elevator, she cites as her answer the passage from Isaiah that is now prescribed in the Lectionary as the first reading for her feast:
You shall nurse, carried in her arms, cradled upon her knees; as a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; in Jerusalem you shall find your comfort.
(Is 66:12-13). 

Thérèse exults:
Your arms, My Jesus, are the elevator which will take me up to Heaven. There is no need for me to grow up; on the contrary, I must stay little, and become more and more so.
There is no need to grow up. One must “stay little, and become more and more so.”

In order to grow in holiness, one must become more and more like a little child; indeed, as Jesus says in the Gospel prescribed for Thérèse’s feast:
Unless you turn and become like children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven
(Mt 18:3)


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