This year sees the one-hundred-and-fifty-year anniversary of the birth of St. Thérèse. She is one of the most popular saints of the modern age as her spirituality of a loving God, that became known as the Little Way, speaks to so many people.
Therese Martin was born in 1873 in Normandy and died a Carmelite Nun in the Lisieux Carmel at the age of 24 in 1897. During her short life she gained extraordinary insights and developed a simple formula for holiness.
The Little Way of St. Thérèse was not some childish concept of religious faith but rather complete confidence and faith in the love and mercy of God. She was inspired by the words of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel: “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child should not enter it.” (Mk 10:14-15).
Towards the end of her life, she wrote: “When I die, I will send down a shower of roses from the heavens, I will spend my heaven by doing good on earth.” As she was dying, she could see from the window of her room the magnificent roses in the convent gardens. She has since been associated with roses. She is known as the Little Flower.
The more she loved Jesus the more she loved her fellow pilgrims. Not only her Carmelite sisters in religious life in the Lisieux Carmel, but all whom she encountered whether it be her relatives in Lisieux or Caen, convicts in prisons, missionaries in North Africa and Vietnam. These were the souls she prayed for as for her no one was beyond the mercy of God. As she prayed for missionaries, she was declared a patron of the missions even though she only left France once to visit Rome on pilgrimage. This reminds us of the importance of prayer.
She had a great love of the scriptures which was noted by St. John Paul II when he declared her a doctor of the church. He said, ‘the primary source of her spiritual experience and her teaching is the Word of God in the Old and New Testaments.’
In the Carmelite Rule we read: ‘Each of you is to stay in his own cell or nearby, pondering the Lord’s last day and night and keeping watch at prayer unless attending to some other duty.’ So, St. Thérèse came from a spiritual tradition that looked upon her cell or room as a mini desert where she was alone with God. Her most precious possession was her Bible. Though she had no biblical commentary, her insights are quite profound.
She used the scriptures to answer questions such was her desire to serve God. In St. Paul she read. ‘Yet strive after the better gifts. After reading this she wrote that she finally had rest.
At the time of St. Thérèse some of the Carmelites had the habit of opening the scriptures at random for guidance. In the Story of the Soul, she wrote about invoking Our Lady: “I begged her to guide my hand that it traces no line displeasing to her. Then opening the Holy Gospels my eyes fell on these words: ‘And going up a mountain he called to him men of his own choosing and they came to him’ (Mk 3:13). This is the mystery of my vocation, my whole life, and especially the mystery of the privileges Jesus showered on my soul”.
Though this is not the literal sense of this short passage of scripture it had a profound effect on her and inspired her vocation and was an inspiration to her for the rest of her life. However, this approach to scripture requires discernment, prayer and reflection upon what was asked of her through a particular text of scripture. Christopher O’Donnell, O. Carm. in his book on Thérèse and Prayer writes: “The Spirit speaks to her in and through the text, so that the inspired Word becomes a word to her inner being”.
She also had the habit of repeating a phrase that had given her comfort and support. She wrote about her second communion: “My tears flowed again with an ineffable sweetness, and I repeated to myself these words of St. Paul: ‘It is no longer I that live, it is Jesus who lives in me!’”
This is a common way of praying with the scriptures of repeating a phrase which allows the word to be imprinted in one mind and heart. There are similarities with Lectio Divina.
Another important passage of scripture for her was ’love one another as I have loved you’ (Jn.13:34). She reflected upon the love that Jesus had for his disciples and upon her calling of becoming love in the heart of the church. She would lead others to discover the love that Jesus had for all his followers. She saw that the Lord was drawing us all to love Him and one another
Francis Kemsley O.Carm
