Thérèse of Lisieux – from the letter to Céline dated August 19, 1894
It is good to suffer for someone who loves us to madness, and in the eyes of the world to pay the price for a fool. People judge others by themselves, and since the world is foolish, it naturally considers us to be foolish!...
But finally, we are not the first. The only accusation that Herod brought against Jesus was that he was a madman, and I think so too… Yes, it was madness to seek poor, small, mortal human hearts to establish a throne in them. He, the King of glory, who sits on cherubim… He, whose heavens cannot contain… He was a madman, our dearly Beloved, for He came to earth to make sinners His friends, His confidants, beings like Himself, He, who with both persons of the Most Holy Trinity was perfectly blessed! … We could never perform for Him the follies that He undertook for us, and our actions do not deserve this name at all, because they are too reasonable and are far below the level of what our love would like to accomplish. The world is therefore foolish, for it does not know what Jesus did to save it. The world wants to draw everything to itself, it seduces people and leads them to wells that have no water…
Translated by Sr. Therese Brichtová O.P.
From the magazine "Karmelimpuls" 1/1993 p. 4.
