Day 13 of 80

Weakness Made Perfect

Chapter XI·Manuscript B·Trust & Surrender
Context
Thérèse's theology of weakness: God does not need perfect victims. Love chooses the weak precisely because weakness gives Love room to work. Our nothingness is not an obstacle — it is the raw material Love transforms into fire.

In olden days pure and spotless holocausts alone were acceptable to the Omnipotent God. Nor could His Justice be appeased, save by the most perfect sacrifices. But the law of fear has given place to the law of love, and Love has chosen me, a weak and imperfect creature, as its victim. Is not such a choice worthy of God's Love?

Yea, for in order that Love may be fully satisfied, it must stoop even unto nothingness, and must transform that nothingness into fire. O my God, I know it — "Love is repaid by love alone." Therefore I have sought, I have found, how to ease my heart, by rendering Thee love for love.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux — Story of a Soul, Chapter XI (Manuscript B). Taylor translation, 1912 (public domain).
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