St. Teresa Margaret: The forgotten Saint of Carmel's Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (PART 1)

Saint Teresa Margaret of the Sacred Heart is known as the forgotten Saint of Carmel. This is unfortunate as she has much to offer all of us in our spiritual journey. As sometimes happens when we read the lives of the saints, we can be put off by what we perceive to have been special graces or benefits they were granted by God. And we can become discouraged that we could never hope to attain to their degree of holiness. St. Teresa Margaret of the Sacred Heart will not leave us with this impression. Her spirituality was based on simplicity, a constant state of recollection and a desire to remain hidden in her perpetual loving gaze of the Lord. Her life was not filled with numerous mystical experiences, she did not seek her understanding of spiritual matters in academic pursuits and her life does not present us with a challenge of great and heroic acts as a requirement for sanctity. She simply took what little is required to become holy: simplicity, prayer, abandoning her own will and seeking to please and love the Lord in all her actions, and then she did her best to fulfill these requirements in every single element of her life. Hers is a spirituality for the common person, something we can all replicate in our own lives. And if we learn from her and apply her simple approach, if we dispose ourselves, as she did, to the work the Holy Spirit desires to do in each of us, then we too can become saints.   References: God is Love, Saint Teresa Margaret: Her Life, by Margaret Rowe ICS Publications. From the Sacred Heart to the Trinity: The Spiritual Itinerary of Saint Teresa Margaret of the Sacred Heart, by Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene ICS Publications