Connie Rossini and St. Therese – CWG March Book Blast

This month, the Catholic Writers’ Guild is touring Guildie Connie Rossini’s book, Trusting God with St. Therese. It’s an SOA winner as well as an award-winning novel, and an inspiration to anyone needing find inspiration in the face of difficult situations.

Summary: Are your fears, weaknesses, doubts, and anger keeping you from intimacy with Christ? Do you struggle with despair? Let St. Therese teach you perfect trust.  Learn how Therese of Lisieux trusted God through tragedy, scruples, spiritual darkness, and physical suffering. Connie Rossini pairs episodic stories from the saint’s life with memories of her own quest to trust. With Sacred Scripture, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and insights from psychology, Rossini leads readers to surrender their lives completely to Jesus. Practical and accessible, Trusting God with St. Therese includes questions for reflection that make it perfect for book clubs and faith-sharing groups.

Buy it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LTATI6C

Excerpt

St. Therese’s trust in God is almost legendary—so much so that we might consider such trust beyond our reach. In her family and later in the Carmelite cloister, she was bathed in a culture focused on Christ. When she struggled at school, she came home to learn among those who understood her. When she wanted to give herself fully to God, she became a nun. When she began to speak about her little way of spiritual childhood, others encouraged her. We daily encounter challenges to trust that she never faced. The world around us—sometimes even including our dearest family members—meets our desire for God with indifference or hostility. In the Church, others think us presumptuous for even striving to follow God more faithfully. And an insistent voice inside us urges us at every step to abandon our course. “Why focus on trust?” we ask ourselves. There are so many pressing problems for Catholics in today’s world: battling the Culture of Death, bringing strays back to the faith, revamping catechesis, caring for the poor. Why not focus instead on one of these? When we ponder this question more deeply, the mistaken notion behind it reveals itself. We do not practice one virtue or join an apostolate in isolation from the rest of our Christian life. Focusing on trust does not take us away from these other important things. It helps us advance in them. Fighting the Culture of Death, for example, can be discouraging, heartbreaking, and personally risky. Trust gives us the strength to persevere. Likewise, we must trust God with the hearts of the lost, for ultimately only he can convert them. We must trust him to work through his Church, even when the humans who make up that Church fall short. And unless we can accept God’s providence, the trials of the poor will crush our spirits. Why should we focus on trust?

In a letter to Sr. Marie of the Sacred Heart, Therese put it concisely: “It is trust, and nothing but trust that must bring us to Love” (PST, 61). “Love,” of course, is God himself. In other words, we cannot grow close to him until we trust him.