The Saint of the Little Way!

Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Neh 2:1-8; Lk 9: 57-62

While today’s Gospel highlights radical discipleship, the feast of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus connects discipleship to the ‘Little Way’ the Virgin and Doctor of the Church developed.

There are three persons in the Gospel who want to become the disciples of Jesus. 

Jesus’ response to the first one implies that discipleship means embracing insecurity. His response to the second one is even more shocking, as Jesus appears to discourage him from performing his filial duty. Here, Jesus’ response does not mean that he wishes his disciples to overlook or desert their family obligations. Instead, he emphasizes the undivided commitment that the life of discipleship should be honored with. To the last one, Jesus’ words are a reminder that discipleship is about sacrifice, even of the family ties. 

For Jesus, discipleship means the urgency or totality of commitment to his cause.

While the Gospel explains discipleship as putting God first in radical terms, the feast of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus invites us to reflect on a different dimension of discipleship, which she named as the ‘Little Way.’ 

St. Thérèse, who entered the Carmelite Convent at age fifteen and who died at age twenty-four, strongly believed that discipleship is not about what one could get, but what one could give, no matter how small it is. With this belief, she developed her own ‘Little Way,’ which emphasized the path of total surrender to Jesus through small acts of love and trust. She found it a great path to sainthood. 

St. Thérèse’s conviction behind developing the ‘Little Way’ was her own amazing self-awareness. She said, ‘It is impossible for me to grow up, so I must bear with myself such as I am with all my imperfections. But I want to seek out a means of going to heaven by a little way, a way that is very straight, very short, and totally new.’ Employing elevator imagery, she described it thus: ‘I wanted to find an elevator which would raise me to Jesus, for I am too small to climb the rough stairway of perfection. I searched then in the Scriptures for some sign of this elevator, the object of my desires, and I read these words coming from the mouth of Eternal Wisdom: ‘Whoever is a little one, let him come to me.’ The elevator which must raise me to heaven is your arms, O Jesus, and for this I have no need to grow up, but rather I have to remain little and become this more and more.’ Revealing thus her firm faith, she abandoned herself to Jesus, and her life became a continual acceptance of the will of the Lord.

St. Thérèse did not regard weakness as an obstacle to holiness but the very path to it. The great mystic fell asleep frequently at prayer. She was embarrassed by her inability to remain awake during her hours in chapel with the religious community. Regarding her temptation to fall asleep during prayer, the ardent follower of the ‘Little Way’ later noted that just as parents love their children as much while asleep as awake, so God loved her even though she often slept during the time for prayers.

Indeed, for St. Thérèse, holiness was not about achieving great feats but doing even the small acts with great love. 

Let us pray that as disciples of Christ, we may love him in our own little ways. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar