The evangelical realism of Therese shows us how close God is to man and that the reality of him attracts his mercy. Faced with the need of the man, Therese brings the transcendent answer of the divine mercy. The world is the place of the concrete liberation of man by God. Faced with a broken and abandoned world, which opposes the existence of God to the misery of man, Teresa testifies that the concrete man is the place where the power of God and his mercy are manifested.
A mercy to which every man who confesses his poverty can enter into prayer. Prayer is the door, and yet it is not just any prayer … it is true prayer … the prayer of the poor … To affirm the mercy of God is to find unity of God, of the world and of man.
However, it is not only an inner experience: it gives birth to a new community whose purpose is the communion of people. It generates a spiritual movement that radiates beyond the religious community to become a social fact. The Teresian community conveys a certain type of culture and this one defined as what makes the man is more man is the woman more woman, generates a civilization. Teresa’s commitment is entirely centered on the liberation of the human person from all forms of material, cultural and social oppression that she has known.
Prayer and mercy are at the source of an authentic civilization: a civilization of mercy built on the rock of truth proclaimed in the discourse of the beatitudes where the Presence of God, liberating man, is revealed.
Prayer is the place where I do not accuse anyone. Prayer is the place where I discover my need for mercy, my need to be understood, to be healed, to be listened to, to be free from all that does not allow me to live in truth … but also I discover the presence of the other. In the depths of my truth, I discover the merciful presence of God, who will guide me in the way of return to the Father. In addition, this truth makes me close to those around me that is why, Teresian prayer is a serious commitment with God and with my brothers, an adventure that will last a lifetime…
The Reformation undertaken by Teresa wants to be the prophetic expression of a praying and merciful Church. She discovered in her personal history and during her foundations that God always gives himself and more (far beyond our merits) … even before we are ready to respond to his love. That is why she always sings in her writings and in her life: «Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo» (I will sing of the Mercies of the Lord forever).
