Praying brings Therese into communion with her mother, her father and her sisters. For part of her experience in prayer is condltíoned by the presence of beloved persons: the presence of human love is a sort of token for the hidden presence of God. How otherwise can a child be trained in prayer, in realizing the hidden presence, except by the sacrament of visible, tangible love? Therese is taken into their prayer and nestles there.
In the contemplative journey, as we swim down into those deeper waters toward the wellsprings of hope...the hidden spring of mercy deep within us is released in that touch and flows out from the center...In plumbing deeply the hidden rootedness of the whole where all things are held together in the Mercy, we are released from the grip of personal fear and set free to minister with skillful means and true compassion to a world desperately in need of reconnection.