Renovaré Weekly · October 25, 2024

Don’t Despise the Life of Small Things

LETTER BY BRIAN MORYKON

Big things are happening.

Big game tonight.

Big election coming up.

Big changes in technology.

Big things are interesting. That’s why they fill the news.

It’s easy to invest energy thinking about big things because they feel consequential, and we feel consequential thinking about them.

But life — your life, my life — is mainly made up of little things, little bricks of daily decisions and thoughts and words. The years pass and the bricks are laid and a house is built. It’s the house you live in.

A habit is laying similar “bricks” over and over. Habit formation is a hot topic these days. Bestselling books on habit say that the way to achieve something like running a marathon isn’t merely to dwell on the end goal. It is to become the kind of person — a consistent runner — who can do such a thing. The beginning of becoming that kind of person — a two-minute jog — looks very small indeed.

There is something to be said for the general wisdom of habit-building through consistent small habits. It works for the atheist; it works for the saint. But the follower of Jesus is invited to submit habits to a richer, more excellent way: the way of love.

Thérèse of Lisieux dreamed of doing big things for God — to be a martyr, missionary, evangelist. But as a sister in a convent, being a Big Deal wasn’t likely. So she embraced being a small deal with a big heart. After a profound experience with Paul’s famous love chapter (1 Cor 13), she wrote:

“Charity gave me the key to my vocation…. I saw that the Church must have a heart, that this heart must be on fire with love. I saw that it was love alone which moved her other members, and that were this love to fail, apostles would no longer spread the Gospel, and martyrs would refuse to shed their blood. I saw that all vocations are summed up in love, and that love is all in all, embracing every time and place because it is eternal. In a transport of ecstatic joy I cried: ‘Jesus, my love, I have at last found my vocation; it is love.’”

She called herself La Petite Fleur, The Little Flower of Jesus, and she lived by “The Little Way” — a way of relying on God as a little child and blessing others through small acts of kindness: smiling at people you dislike, doing mundane tasks for and with Jesus.

It’s possible, of course, to do small things with great grit, with a sense of victimhood or bitterness. But you never feel an ounce of that with Thérèse. She did little things with God’s help in God’s company fueled by God’s joy. And God formed her into a big soul.

So, Father, like Thérèse, help us to learn the joy of humility. Make us faithful in small things day after day after day, that you may get great glory from our little lives.

Brian Morykon
Director of Communications

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LET’S DIVE IN...

CURATED BY GRACE POUCH

1.

In an excerpt from her autobiography, Thérèse of Lisieux tells about the small acts of kindness that helped her learn to get along with a particularly annoying nun in her fellowship. Little but valiant steps toward self-mastery and love.
2.

If you want to learn more about the life of the “Little Flower,” Thérèse, this short video gives a helpful overview of her life and work.
3.

“Remember…the greatest saints in this world, or who ever were in this world, were babes in grace once.” Read Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s 1883 sermon, “Small Things Not to be Despised.”(You might want to read it in small bites — which is appropriate, considering the subject).
4.

When Robin Wrigley-Carr discovered Evelyn Underhill’s lost prayer book, she felt too “little” or insignificant to have stumbled upon such a treasure. Listen to her conversation with Nathan Foster from 2022 where she explains how the experience both humbled and encouraged her.
5.

Faithful in little… faithful in much. Fr. Jean Grou explores the superior helpfulness of small acts of obedience for forming humility and love in our spirits.
6.

A little rule, a small obedience
That sets aside, and tills the chosen ground,
Fruitful humility, chosen innocence,
A binding by which freedom might be found
Read and listen to Malcolm Guite’s poem, A Sonnet for St. Benedict.

Grace Pouch
Content Manager

WORTH QUOTING

“Do not despise anything that looks like grace in your heart. God help you to take it as a gardener at this time of the year takes the little slips and cuttings, and puts them in silver sand to make them grow, that he may have flowering plants by-and-by.”

– Charles Haddon Spurgeon (source)

TO CONTEMPLATE

Erodium chamaedryoides
François Hubert (after Pierre-Joseph Redouté) 1787-1788 (source)

At the bottom of the engraving, the artist depicts flowers and internal structures from the Heron’s Bill plant — down to the minutest grain of pollen. In the area we have enlarged, my untrained eye can hardly tell the difference between the parts labeled 9 and 10. But botanists can distinguish microscopic structural variations and track even the subtlest progress in the plant’s life cycle. Whether it’s the growth of a plant, a child, a community, or the fruit of the Spirit in human lives, every tiny development is important to the overall life and health of the organism. Praise be to God for the revelations of truth he scatters throughout creation!

TO PONDER

The next time you feel annoyed at the lack of maturity — in yourself, in someone else, in your community of faith — take the gentle gaze of a gardener and look for tiny signs of life. Is there a small growing edge that you can hope for, bless, or nurture with God’s help?