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Transcript

8/20/26 The Little Way · Omnia Christus

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I remember when I was in religious life and the novitiate,
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: they always discouraged us from doing crazy penances.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you can be tempted to do that, especially as a novice and a lot of enthusiasm.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: And they always told us the most important thing.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Are to do the simple penances, the things that don't seem to be so grand or outrageous.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And when you've mastered those, then you can do crazier things.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because in some sense,
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: it's easier to fast all day or to take cold showers or to do other things like that
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: than it is To simply practice the Christian virtues that were called to practice
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: the little things of daily life,
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: putting up with the annoyances from other people,
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: not reacting to those things,
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: controlling ourselves, controlling our tempers, controlling those small things.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately,
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: it happens that there are Christians,
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: and we might all know them,
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: who live very ascetical lives, but are kind of nasty people.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's sad,
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: but that can happen because those are people who have missed,
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: as Christ is saying,
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: you're the weightier things of the law and are focused on the small things.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe they're living really abnegated lives, if you will.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're doing all these things, giving up all these things, fasting all the time, but...
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you're fasting all the time and you're a nasty person and you snap at people,
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: you probably shouldn't be fasting.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: You probably should be fasting from your temper.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: You should be fasting from other things.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: You should be fasting from getting annoyed.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: You should be offering up those small difficulties of daily life.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what Christ is trying to say here.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: He says, don't forget about the most important thing.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: The most important thing is charity.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: The most important thing is our love for one another.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: The most important thing is our interpersonal relations.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the really hard things in life and it's so easy to do other things.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: It happens often with men.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: The men will absorb themselves into their work and spend all their time working
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: because that's easier for them than trying to deal with the chaos at home and trying
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: to You know, live in the difficulty that is a family in those relationships.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we all have our own ways of running away from and checking out of those things
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: that are really hard.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's easy when you have something good to do for a minute.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm working.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm providing for my family.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing this for the church.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm all the time at the church.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm working for the church.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe I'm running away from something else.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that something else that I'm running from is the most important thing
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: in my life,
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: which is that daily grind of being nice and civil to those in my life,
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: those who annoy me,
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  SPEAKER_00: those who I see day after day,
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  SPEAKER_00: those who get on my nerves, doing something nice for them, reaching out to them.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Christ is talking about in this gospel.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a challenge for all of us because we all tend to do it.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the more religious we are, the more in danger we are of this.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Christ is precisely talking to the scribes and the Pharisees because we're the ones
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: who can very easily use our religious practices and all these other sorts of things
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: to run away from and not focus on those very basic,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: simple penances of our day-to-day life, putting up with the small things.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's where sanctity is.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sanctity and love are in the small things, the mundane things, the daily grind.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's St. Therese de Lisieux's way, which she had in her story of a soul, her little way.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's on offer to all of us.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not...
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not romantic.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's not adventurous, but it's where real heroism is forged.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot forget that and let anything else get in the way of true love as simple,
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: mundane and unglorious as that might seem.