To prove our love for God in such things day in and day out requires greater courage and loyalty than might appear at first sight.  And until we have showed ourselves faithful in what we may regard as little things, God will not call us to do great things for him – if he does at all.

Not that anything can be little which the infinite greatness of God requires.  For if it is God’s will that we should do a particular thing for him, then at once that thing assumes an importance out of all proportion to its outward value. (3)

“The kindly forbearance towards another, the trifling victory over temper and passion, the self-denial in some little matter, the resistance to a dislike, the honest acknowledgement of a fault, the effort to be calm and even-tempered, the willingly accepted humiliation and censure, – all these things, be sure, are a more precious harvest than we are wont to think, provided they be wrought for the love of God”. (4) (our emphasis)

It is all summed up by the example of St Thérèse of Lisieux, the Carmelite nun and Little Flower of Jesus: “Love needs to be proved by action.  Well, even a little child can scatter flowers, to scent the throne-room with their fragrance…That shall be my life, to scatter flowers – to miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word, always doing the tiniest things right, and doing it for love”. (5)

References

1. Keble, J. (1822) New every morning is the love.  Available from:
http://www.hymnary.org/text/new_every_morning_is_the_love (Accessed 11 June 2012) (Internet).

2. Grou, J. (1952) Manual for interior souls, London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd.

3. Grou, J. (1952) Manual for interior souls, London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd.

4. St Francis de Sales (1616) trans. by Lear, H.L.S. (1890) Of the love of God, Book XII, Chapter VI,  London: Longmans Green, and Co.

5. St Thérèse of Lisieux (1895 – 1897) trans. by Knox, R. (1958) Autobiography of a Saint.  Thérèse of Lisieux, London: The Harvill Press.