Carmelite homily for Friday, December 6, 2019 – Lectionary 179
In her autobiography, A Story of a Soul, Saint Therese talks about her ‘Christmas Conversion.’ She was young – fourteen. But she says it was her “complete conversion.” There was a Therese before and a Therese afterwards. It was sudden. In today’s Gospel we have ‘sudden.’ These blind men are suddenly – and the word is ‘suddenly’ – healed. They can see what they did not see. That’s what Therese had at her ‘Christmas Conversion.’ It was Christmas Eve; she was fourteen, and she said, “I felt charity enter into my soul and the need to forget myself and please others; since then I’ve been happy.” That’s her ‘Christmas Conversion.’ It was a selfish, self-centered, self-oriented, self-motivated, self-aggrandizing Therese before and it was an other-centered, other-helping, other-focused, other-loving Therese after. That’s the call of the Gospel. That’s the call of all of us in Jesus.