#littleness

[theinwardlight]

From Foundations of our faith and calling, the Bruderhof

[kamala-laxman]

"Those who cannot feel the littleness of great things in themselves are apt to overlook the greatness of little things in others." Okakura Kakuzo

[macrolit]

When we are chafed and fretted by small cares, a look at the stars will show us the littleness of our own interests.

Maria Mitchell (1818-1889) American astronomer, educator

[revolutionoftenderness]

"I do not agree with a big way of doing things. What matters is the individual. If we wait till we get numbers, then we will be lost in the numbers and we will never be able to show that love and respect for the person." – St. Mother Teresa  [Personage, Karel Appel]

• On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa received permission from the Holy See to start her own order, “The Missionaries of Charity”, whose primary task was to love and care for those persons nobody was prepared to look after. In 1965 the Society became an International Religious Family by a decree of Pope Paul VI. More: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1979/teresa/biographical/ 

• In 1948, Appel, along with fellow artists living and working in Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, founded the expressionist collective, Cobra, based on the names of the three cities. Faithfully an avant-garde movement, Cobra members were inspired by folk art, children’s creativity, and primitivism. Because of their use of bright colors and expressive brushstrokes, Cobra is often noted as a precursor to the American abstract expressionist movement. More: https://www.caviar20.com/products/karel-appel-personage-painting-1965 

[elizabethanism]

I winked at my own littleness, as people do at their own faults.

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

[monasticspirit]

Child Jesus loves you! Jesus likes every now and then to appear in child form in order to teach us many things and relate with us. To remember to be little and rely on God our father. ^_^

[littleflowerofchrist]

The good God would not inspire unattainable desires; I can, then, in spite of my littleness, aspire to sanctity.  For me to become greater is impossible; I must put up with myself just as I am with all my imperfections.  But I wish to find the way to go to Heaven by a very straight, short, completely new little way.  We are in a century of inventions: now one does not even have to take the trouble to climb the steps of a stairway; in the homes of the rich an elevator replaces them nicely.  I, too, would like to find an elevator to lift me to Jesus, for I am too little to climb the rough stairway of perfection.  So I have looked in the books of the saints for a sign of the elevator I long for, and I have read these words proceeding from the mouth of eternal Wisdom: 'He that is a little one, let him turn to me.' [footnote: Proverbs 9:16]  So I came knowing that I had found what I was seeking, and wanting to know, O my God, what You would do with the little one who would answer Your call, and this is what I found: 'As one whom the mother caresses, so will I comfort you.  You shall be carried at the breasts and upon the knees they shall caress you.' [footnote: Isaiah 66:12-13]  Never have more tender words come to make my soul rejoice.  The elevator which must raise me to the heavens is Your arms, O Jesus!  For that I do not need to grow; on the contrary, I must necessarily remain small, become smaller and smaller.  O my God, You have surpassed what I expected, and I want to sing Your mercies.

St. Therese of Lisieux in her Manuscrits autobiographiques, page 244 as quoted in Fr. Jean C. J. D’Elbee’s book I Believe in Love: A personal retreat based on the teaching of St. Therese of Lisieux on pages 26-28, Conference 2, “Humble Confidence”