"This was the saint Agnes chose as her patron. Not the big Teresa, the bold reformer and mystic who mapped the soul's interior mansions, landing herself in hot water with the Spanish Inquisition. Agnes chose the path of Therese the Little.
"Born roughly a decade after Little Therese died, Mother Teresa took up the Carmelite's torch and bore her little light farther down the trail into the darkening recesses of the modern world, the world remade in the image of Nietzsche, Darwin and Marx.
"Daughter in spirit to Therese, Mother Teresa showed us that the world was not what we had made of it, that there was more to life than what the philosophers, scientists and revolutionarists told us. It was all so much simpler, so much more lovely. . . .
" 'Live life beautifully,' she told us. That is what attracted people to Mother Teresa. They could sense that she was trying to practice what she preached. They could see that she tried to make everything she did, even her smallest thoughts and tiniest gestures, an oblation, an offering of love. She would tell us all to do likewise: 'Offer God every word you say and every movement your make.'
"Mother Teresa believed that there was nothing so small that it can't be offered to God. The littler the better. The smaller the more beautiful. 'There are many people who can do big things," she said, "but there are very few people who will do the small things.' Her life was made up doing these small things: saying her prayers, going to Mass, washing clothes, cleaning the house, reading a letter to a blind man, holding the hand of a dying woman, changing diapers on an AIDS baby. These weren't chores for her, but little gifts of herself, things she did for Jesus.
"Everything we do, she said, from the time we rise up in the morning until the time we lay ourselves down to sleep, can be done for the love of Jesus, can be offered as something beautiful for God. The whole day can be a prayer, a dialogue with God. She asked, "Do you play well? Sleep well? Eat well? These are duties. Nothing is small for God."
