Therese and the blessed in heaven

In the month of November, when the Church especially remembers the dead, I am thinking of Therese's relationship with those who went before her.  On August 10, 1897, in her last letter to her spiritual brother, the seminarian Maurice Belliere, she wrote:

"I admit to you, little Brother, that we do not understand heaven in the same way.  It seems to you that, sharing in the justice, in the holiness of God, I would be unable as on earth to excuse your faults.  Are you forgetting, then, that I will be sharing also in the infinite mercy of the Lord?  I believe the Blessed in heaven have a great compassion on our miseries, they remember, being weak and mortal like us, they committed the same faults, sustained the same combats, and their fraternal tenderness becomes greater than it was when they were on earth, and for this reason they never cease protecting and praying for us."¹

How consoling to think that those who loved us on earth understand us better, love us more intimately, and are more powerful to help us than ever before.  How generously Therese must share with those around her in heaven her mission of doing good to souls.   

¹Letters of Saint Therese: General Correspondence, Volume Two, translated by John Clarke, O.C.D.  Copyright 1988 by Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc., ICS Publications, p. 1173.