Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
She wasn’t one to give up so easily, though:
she had to find some way to become a saint despite her littleness.
Turning to nature, she discovered that even though the daisies and violets were
lesser blooms compared to the roses and the lilies, nature would lose
her splendour without them. Thérèse was content to be a little flower:
I saw that if all these lesser blooms wanted
to be roses instead, nature would lose the gaiety of her springtide dress—there
would be no little flowers to make a pattern over the countryside.
St Thérèse of Lisieux was born to saintly
parents, Saints Louis and Zélie Martin on January 2, 1873 in Alençon,
France—the last of nine children. Four of her siblings died at an early age,
and her mother only lived four years after Thérèse’s birth. St Louis Martin,
her father, moved the family to Lisieux, from where our saint passed her
childhood.
The loss of her mother had caused her great
suffering, and when her elder sister (Pauline) who had become her second
mother left to join the Carmelites, Thérèse’s situation become even worse.
She came down with an illness that couldn’t be understood, characterised by
frequent fevers. For a while she remained bedridden until when, gazing at a
statue of our Lady on Pentecost Sunday of 1883, she saw the Blessed Virgin
smile. At this she was miraculously cured.
The simplicity in character and holiness
Thérèse had shown from a tender age now bloomed into her desire to enter the
Carmelite convent where three of her elder sisters had already preceded her.
She was only thirteen when she expressed this desire, and that was too young to
be allowed into the convent. She was certain, however, that it was the Lord’s
will that she be consecrated to him already. And so, with the support of her
father, she sought the bishop’s permission. When the bishop would not give his
consent, she took the opportunity of a pilgrimage to Rome to ask the Holy
Father Pope Leo XIII himself for the permission she required.
Eventually, she was allowed into the
convent at fifteen, taking the name Sr Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the
Holy Face. Although its was thought she would be treated like a little
child in the cloister, she met suffering there.
One of her greatest torments was more
interior than exterior. Thérèse wanted to do just about every heroic thing
imaginable for the Lord:
To be your spouse, my Jesus; to be a
Carmelite; to be, through my union with you, a mother of souls, surely this
should be enough? Yet I feel the call for more vocations still; I want to be a
warrior, a priest, an apostle, a doctor of the Church, a martyr—there is no
heroic deed I do not wish to perform.
In the confines of her Carmelite convent,
she could not do all these things.
Yet again, she couldn’t just give up on her
desire—she had to discover some way to satisfy this longing.
This time, she meditated on the Church and
the vocation of the saints:
Charity gave me the key to my vocation. I saw
that if the Church was a body made up different members, the most essential and
important one of all would not be lacking; I saw that the Church must have a
heart, that this heart must be on fire with love. I saw […] that were this love
to fail, apostles would no longer spread the Gospel, and martyrs would refuse
to shed their blood. I saw that all vocations are summed up in love…
At this discovery, her heart found rest: ‘Jesus,
my Love, I have at last found my vocation; it is love!’ In the heart of the
Church, she decided to be love. In this way she could be all the things
she dreamed of.
Thérèse offered herself as a Victim of
Love, which meant she would gratefully receive the tender love of Jesus.
Frail and imperfect as she saw herself to be, she acknowledged that Love could
not have made a more worthy choice for a victim since ‘to be wholly
satisfied, [Love] must stoop down to nothingness and turn that nothingness to
fire.’
Being a Victim of Love also meant
that she had to repay that love she received with love.
What could she possibly do or give to repay
the immense love she received from the Lord?
Striking deeds are forbidden me. I cannot
preach the Gospel; I cannot shed my blood, but what matter? My brothers do it
for me, while I, a little child, stay close beside the royal throne and love
for those who are fighting. Love proves itself by deeds, and how shall I prove
mine? The little child will scatter flowers whose fragrant perfume will
surround the royal throne…
She scattered these flowers by ‘never
letting slip a single sacrifice, a single glance, a single word; by making
profit of the very smallest actions, by doing them all for love.’
St Thérèse spent the rest of her life
living this Little Way of Love. She would apologise even when she was
accused wrongly, she would make a great effort to smile in the presence of a
sister who had the tendency to annoy her, she would endure patiently an
irritating sister, she would eat whatever was set before her without being
picky, she would gently care for the sick, even when they were troublesome to
care for; she would do the most menial tasks like laundry and cleaning, with
the greatest love.
Even when she fell terribly sick with
tuberculosis, the disease that eventually claimed her life, she endured the
pain of it all with great patience and love, offering it up to her beloved
Jesus. She would smile despite the suffering, so much so that some of the
sisters were convinced she was only pretending to be sick.
Thérèse’s Little Way made her
inconspicuous even to her own sisters with whom she lived since she exercised
her virtue in very ordinary ways. One of the sisters even said of her, ‘She
is very good, but she has certainly never done anything worth speaking about.’
The Little Way was also a way of
confidence. St Thérèse knew she was only doing little, but was confident that
God was content with her weak efforts, and could use them to make of her that
lofty end she desired:
I still am weak and imperfect. I always feel,
however, the same bold confidence of becoming a great saint because I don’t
count on my merits since I have none, but I trust in Him who is Virtue and
Holiness. God alone, content with my weak efforts, will raise me to Himself and
make me a saint, clothing me in His infinite merits.
Before her death, apart from the painful
illness, she had to endure another trial: she was troubled by a dryness of
spirit that robbed her of delight in the hope of eternal life. Was heaven
really there? Weren’t all her efforts to be holy in vain? This was a cross she had to carry, only
relying on her faith, till her death.
And she carried it lovingly.
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The Little Flower soon became
renowned because of her Story of a Soul, an autobiography she had
written under obedience to her superiors. It consists of three manuscripts, all
of which end with the word Love. In them many people through the ages
have found what Venerable Pope Pius XII called the rediscovery of the heart
of the Gospel.
On October 19, 1997, St Pope John Paul II
declared her a doctor of the Church. Her doctrine is, simply put, The Little
Way of Spiritual Childhood—the Little Way of trusting fully in the
God whom we call ‘Abba. Father’ (Mk 14:36, Rom 8:15, Gal 4:6); the Little
Way of doing even the smallest, most ordinary, insignificant acts of our
daily lives with great love, for the sake of Christ.
St Thérèse had once humbly thought herself
too little to be a doctor of the Church. God raised her, in her littleness, to
the greatest ranks of his saints amongst whom she shines with a brilliant
light.
Before her death, she promised to ‘let
down a shower of roses’ and to ‘spend eternity doing good on earth.’
True to her promise, she has, over the years, inspired many people to turn from
the ambitious pursuit of great deeds to the humble service of simple, ordinary
tasks with great love; to not be discouraged by their littleness and weakness,
but with confidence to approach the heart of Jesus like little children.
St Thérèse’s Little Way is a way that can be embraced by anyone!
It is confidence, and nothing but confidence, that must lead us to love.
Her feast day is October 1, and
she is honoured as the Patroness of the Missions, not because she ever
went out on any missionary journey, but because of her great missionary zeal
that shone brightly in her Carmelite convent, and which was always seen in the
letters she wrote to the missionaries.
Following her example, what little deeds can you do, what small tasks can you accomplish today (now)? Is it a chore you can do, an assignment or homework you can finish, someone you can forgive, a sinful situation you can avoid? Whatever it may be, do it with great love—for God.
Cover Image: St. Thérèse of Lisieux by her older sister, Céline Martin (Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face)
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