As we gather in parish halls for committee meetings, prepare homilies in rectory offices, or coordinate outreach programmes from our laptops, we might wonder what a young French Carmelite nun who died in 1897 could possibly teach us about ministry in our complex, digitised world. Yet we find ourselves returning again and again to St Thérèse of Lisieux, whose Little Way speaks to something essential we’ve lost in our busyness: the recognition that holiness isn’t built on grand achievements but on love in the smallest details.
The Little Way is fundamentally about doing small things with extraordinary love. Thérèse never considered herself capable of great deeds or heroic feats in the world’s eyes. Instead, she saw God’s love in the smallest of actions, performed with intentionality and trust. “What matters in life,” she wrote, “is not great deeds, but great love.” This approach does not dismiss grand gestures but recognises that most of our lives consist of ordinary moments – and these are precisely where holiness happens. For modern ministers feeling burned out by pressure of constant comparison, the anxiety of perfectionism and the trap of valuing results over relationships, Thérèse’s approach offers liberation. Ministry effectiveness is not measured by material success – attendance numbers or budget sizes – but in the quality of love we bring to each encounter. If we pause long enough to listen amid the noise, the expectation and the complexity of modern pastoral life, we hear the quiet invitation of St Thérèse of the Child Jesus: to return to “the heart of the Church,” where love is the animating force of every ministry.
In our ministries, we are drawn to do something visible. We want our work to bear obvious fruit. Yet Thérèse shows that what counts most may remain unseen. “To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul,” she once said. The Little Way opens our eyes to the mystery of grace working through the smallest gestures, through the kind greeting, the attentive silence, the unnoticed perseverance. This hiddenness is participation in Christ’s own kenosis – his self-emptying love. Our service, like hers, becomes contemplative when we cease seeking recognition and start offering each act as praise.
Pope Benedict XVI, in Deus Caritas Est, wrote that “love is never ‘finished’ or complete”. Ministry is not a project to accomplish but a communion to nurture. When we live ministry as a continuous act of love, every task – no matter how small – becomes prayer. In modern parish and apostolic contexts, such an approach may appear impractical. Yet we know the strain of trying to accomplish everything and please everyone. The Little Way offers a spiritual antidote: to remain little, trusting that God multiplies what we surrender. When we work in love, all becomes sacrament of presence. Love sanctifies the ordinary and turns labour into liturgy. In his encyclical on hope, Spe Salvi (2007), Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the importance of the “little daily decisions” that shape us and the world, noting that “the small things that we ourselves are able to do” always matter – choosing kindness over irritation, patience over haste, and self-forgetfulness over self-pity. This cultivation of interior virtue forges souls into vessels capable of carrying God’s love to the world.
In Novo Millennio Ineunte, St John Paul II urged the Church at the dawn of the new millennium to rediscover the “radical priority of holiness.” In other words, genuine ministry begins in prayer, flows from contemplation and is sustained by interior simplicity. Thérèse gently dares us to return to simplicity of heart. For us who minister, this simplicity necessitates trust. Her confidence in God’s mercy freed her from anxiety about her limitations. She lived her vocation grounded in the conviction that divine love is greater than our efforts and that our weaknesses can themselves become meeting places with mercy. Modern ministry, with all its pressures, will rediscover its joy only when it learns again how to rest in mercy. The more we allow ourselves to be loved by God, the freer our service becomes. Simplicity also means letting go of unnecessary noise within our souls. Thérèse teaches us that the path to fruitfulness is interior littleness – emptying ourselves of control so that Christ may act. Her Little Way thus mirrors Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel: “Unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Ministry grounded in this childlike trust grows naturally toward compassion, gentleness and patience. In this way, even modern pastoral systems can become spaces of tenderness.
Thérèse was a contemplative missionary, offering her hidden life for the evangelisation of souls. Ministry today requires us to develop this character. Without contemplation, we lose our centre; without service, our faith remains incomplete. Through Thérèse, we recognise that contemplative depth and pastoral zeal are not opposites but dimensions of one reality. When our hearts remain grounded in silence, it becomes easier to recognise God’s action in our ministries. It is only through prayer that we perceive the hidden Christ in those we serve. Thérèse transforms contemplation into encounter: her love of Jesus overflowed naturally into love for others. She once wrote, “I will be love in the heart of the Church.” Whatever our ministry, we are called to become love incarnate in our contexts.
To walk the Little Way in ministry is to rediscover humility, trust and gentleness as the true sources of strength. It changes how we face discouragement, misunderstandings and the inevitable fatigue of service. Thérèse teaches us to bless our fragility rather than resent it. She invites ministers to replace perfectionism with surrender. Rather than asking “How much have I achieved?”, we may begin each day asking, “How has God loved through me?”. Such a shift liberates us from comparison and isolation, and most importantly, division and discord. We begin to see the mystical Body of Christ not as a collection of functions, but as a communion of love. As Pope Francis observes, “The Church grows by attraction.” The Little Way is precisely that attraction – love drawing others toward Love.
Let us walk this Little Way together. Let us learn anew that ministry is not a burden to carry but a friendship to live. In every encounter, in every act of service, in every hidden moment of fidelity, let us find the whisper of divine tenderness shaping the world anew. Let us, in our ministry on earth, learn to do good in Thérèse’s Little Way, trusting that these small acts of love, gathered together, will become in God’s hands a shower of roses that can renew the face of the Church.