Love's Kaleidoscope

Have you ever wondered how a kaleidoscope works? Sure, you look into the eyepiece, aim the contraption toward a light source, and spin it slowly. The beautiful designs that it creates is amazing, ever changing, ever beautiful.

St. Therese of Lisieux once marveled at a kaleidoscope, and took the time to figure out its secret. She writes about it here:

"This toy...intrigued me, and for a long time I kept wondering just what could produce so delightful a phenomenon. One day a careful examination revealed that the unusual effect was merely the combination of tiny scraps of paper and wool scattered about inside. When on further scrutiny I discovered three looking-glasses inside the tube, the puzzle was solved. And this simple toy became for me the image of a great mystery...So long as our actions, even the most trivial, remain within love's kaleidoscope, the Blessed Trinity (which the three converging glasses represent) imparts to them a marvelous brightness and beauty... The eye-piece of the spy-glass symbolizes the good God, who looking from the outside (but through Himself, as it were) into the kaleidoscope finds everything quite beautiful, even our miserable straws of effort, and our most insignificant actions." (taken from The Love That Keeps Us Sane, living the little way of St. Therese of Lisieux, by Marc Foley, O.C.D.)

I love this analogy! Sometimes all I am able to put into love's kaleidoscope are the tiniest shards of glass. A smile when I don't feel like it. Biting my tongue when I feel like complaining. Going the extra yard when all I've been asked for is a mile. Choosing not to judge another's motives. All these things done in love are priceless to God.

Great big things done without love are just a "clanging gong, a clashing cymbal." (1Corinthians 13). But the smallest, insignificant acts, done in love, move mountains, change the hardest hearts, and will be rewarded by God.

So throw your shards into love's kaleidoscope, and let God multiply your efforts into something big and beautiful for Him.