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Today's Devotional

Let us consider the love which this seraphic saint [Teresa of Avila] had for Almighty God. It seemed to her impossible that there should be any one in the world who did not love God. She said: “O my God, are you not most amiable on account of your infinite perfections and of your infinite love for us? How can it be possible that any one should be found that does not love you?” ... She said, that to him who loves God, it is easy to become disengaged from the earth: “O my God, nothing more is necessary than to love you truly, in order to find all other things easy...” She even said that when she went to heaven, she should not be concerned to see others enjoy God more than she did, but should not be able to endure to see others love him more than she loved him herself.

What is so admirable in this saint is the resolute spirit with which she endeavored to do every thing which she knew to be pleasing to God: “There is nothing however great it may be, which if it should occur to me, that I would not courageously meet.” And hence she taught that the love of God is acquired by being “resolute in acting and suffering for God.” And ... “The devil has no fear of irresolute souls.” So ardent was her desire to please God, that she made a vow to do in all things what was most perfect. And because love is best evinced in suffering for the object loved, she desired to live only to suffer for God; hence she writes: “It does not appear to me that we need live unless it be to suffer; and this, with great affection, do I ask for of God. I say to him with my whole heart: Lord, either to suffer, or to die; nothing else do I ask for...”

About the author and the source

Teresa of Avila (1515–1582) was a Carmelite nun and mystic, author of several books, and one of the first women declared to be a “doctor of the church.” Alphonsus Liguori (1696–1787), who took Teresa as the subject of today’s meditation, was a Catholic bishop and a prolific author. He founded the Redemptorists to teach and preach in slums and other impoverished places.