October 1, 2007
And Lest We Forget
Today is the feast day of "The Little Flower." The same great saint whose inspiration and wisdom helped other saints of similar name through times of great trial and darkness. Her little way is simple, but simple almost never equals easy. It is simple to roll a wheelbarrow filled with lead from the top of a hill to the bottom; however getting to the bottom without damaging oneself or one's surroundings is not easy.
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January 22, 2007
A Word for the Day and St. Therese's Prophetic Vision
James 2:13
Merciless is the judgment on the man who has not shown mercy; but mercy triumphs over judgment.
Here we have the glimmering of the love of God that, I am convinced, took us a long time to understand fully. In fact, I would mark the turning point in our understanding of this Lord near the turn of the 20th century, with the still quiet voice of a young French girl hidden away in a cloister of little importance in the small French town of Lisieux. This young girl, raised in the Jansenist, puritanical vein of the Church vouchsafed us all a glimpse of what God is really like; and her revelation, prophet-like, received the endorsement of the Church--first with her unprecedentedly rapid canonization and then with her elevation to Doctor of the Church.
She didn't invent anything new, but she showed in a new light what had been proclaimed since the time of Jesus. God is a Father. Not only is He a Father, He is the exemplar of all fathers. And because at the same time He is all Love and all Goodness, He is a Father whose patience is infinite and whose heart longs for our return to Him. The smallest motion, the slightest leaning in His direction and He is there to scoop us up in His arms and bring us to Him, the very finest "elevator to God" because in the entire journey, we are close to Him.
This is the God that Jesus proclaimed, the God who is the Father of the prodigal Son. He isn't a new invention. But Saint Therese had the courage and tenacity to give us a new insight into Him. We understand Him now as we do largely because of the synchronicity of St. Therese of Lisieux, Blessed Dom Columba Marmion, and St. Pius X. Together the three of these, and probably a host of others, converged upon the vision of God the Merciful and loving Father. The Holy Spirit reawakened this knowledge in a very special way for all of us moderns. And we would do well to recall it frequently and to act with the knowledge that with God as our Father, we are all brothers and sisters. We do well to forgive, put aside our petty sibling rivalry, and show His beautiful mercy and love to all around us.
St. Therese continues to shower roses from heaven upon those willing to receive them.
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April 7, 2006
The Little Way
from At the Fountain of Elijah
Wilfrid McGrealThérèse stands at the centre of the Carmelite tradition with her belief that we can all achieve closeness to God through our prayer and our following of Jesus Christ as we live the Gospel. . . . For Thérèse, holiness, closeness to God, in not achieved by spectacular ascetic practices. We come to God by infusing love into every aspect of life. The 'Little Way' is one of childlike trust in God, but it is not infantile and naive, or a searching for the lost innocence of some idealised childhood. . . . She wanted a quiet hidden relationship, to live out in secret her love for God.
The Little Way is simple but it is not easy. Thérèse has clearly shown us that the way to God is not paved with the spectacular--neither in actions, nor in deeds, nor particularly in high-flown thought. It is remarkable that Thérèse is a doctor of the church in that she had a very ordinary intellect--she was not a genius in our understanding of the word. But she was a Spiritual Genius. She saw into the heart of the teaching of St. John of the Cross and pulled out of it the Little Way. That is an act of imagination and genius that is hard to qualify.
In addition Thérèse was tempted many times to despair and even to suicide as her life came to an end. She was ordinary in every sense of the term, and extraordinary of spirit. She was a living embodiment of John's passive dark night of the spirit and through her love of Jesus Christ came to an end of love that would resound through the Church and through the ages.
One wonders what future writers will make of this little Saint, how the patina of years will change her story and make of her something akin to what the great Medieval Saints are to us. Will she be shrouded in legend, or have we grown too rational, too sophisticated, too hardened to begin to accrete legend to her story. I hope not. I hope that over the years studying and rethinking her doctrine and her life will lead many to understand it in a new way and that way will become legend. Just as Filipe Ribot thought about and meditated upon the life of Elijah as he wrote De institutione and formulated a legend, a story of origins that pierces to the heart of the Carmelite charism and which inspired countless Carmellites after him to come to the way and to return to the way described as that of the first monks.
We cannot know what the future will hold for her story, but it is possible now to follow her little way, scarcely a century old, and yet shown durable, powerful, and meaningful to ordinary people in ordinary lives.
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March 20, 2006
To Die of Love
The Saint of the Little Way, well known for her French schoolgirl and sentimentality, disliked by the intellectuals, a little repugnant to modern sensibilities, had this to say:
Our Lord died on the cross in agony and yet this is the most beautiful death of love. . . To die of love is not to die in transports.
-St. Thérèse
Spoken by one in the throes of a most excruciating crucible of ravaging tuberculosis, it carries the weight of authority. This is not some starry-eyed Schoolgirl--this is a young woman facing her own death, alone as Jesus was alone, in the midst of the deepest, darkest night any of us can begin to imagine. She neither turned her back on it, nor did she flee to seek refuge in some vain hope or in bitterness. Instead, knowing full well what was at the end, she embraced it and went to it. This she did because of her love and Jesus and her thirst for souls.
The exterior of the package, no matter how much sugary dressing it may have, does not reveal the interior strength, the beauty of the soul that even now "Spends [her] heaven doing good on Earth."
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March 8, 2006
Another Bouquet from St. Thérèse
St. Thérèse quoted in Carmelite Spirituality in the Teresian Tradition Paul-Marie of the Cross O.C.D.Merit does not consist in doing or in giving much, but rather in receiving, in loving much. . . . It is said, it is much sweeter to give than to receive, and it is true. But when Jesus wills to take for Himself the sweetness of giving, it would not be gracious to refuse. Let us allow Him to take and give all He wills.
Our merits increase as we empty ourselves and allow God to fill us. Utter self-giving means utter Divine receiving, and whatever merits we might have accrued dim in comparison to being spouse to God. Once again, St. Thérèse is so right on the mark. And one of the great difficulties of our time is that so many know well how to give, but receive very, very poorly.
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From a Little Flower
Great beauty. The thought and admonition are absolutely beautiful.
St. Thérèse quoted in Carmelite Spirituality in the Teresian Tradition
Paul-Marie of the Cross, O.C.D.You are not sufficiently trusting, you fear God too much. I assure you that this grieves him. Do not be afraid of going to purgatory because of its pain, but rather long not to go there because this pleases God who imposes this expiation so regretfully. From the moment that you try to please him in all things if you have the unshakable confidence that he will purify you at every instant in his love and will leave in you no trace of sin, be very sure that you will not go to purgatory.
I know nothing of why Saints receive the honors they do of the Church, but I'm convinced that St. Thérèse, who is adored by both traditionalists and by others in the Church, is actually the Saint who most significantly changed our understanding of God and of Salvation. I think that she opened our eyes to the supremacy of love and to the nature of God as Father, in ways that might have been touched upon, but certainly never thoroughly explored before her. While never denying Church doctrine, look at the shades of understanding in the passage above--God "regretfully" imposes the expiation of Purgatory. Certainly not the traditional view of either God or purgatory.
This is certainly not the God one would have encountered in the writings of Saints before Thérèse; and it is an image of God a great many have tremendous trouble accepting even now. The school that so adamantly opposes Hans Urs von Balthasar's contentions in Dare We Hope that All Men Be Saved?, would be disinclined, it would seem, to accept such an image of God. And yet there is part of me that is certain that St. Thérèse got it exactly right. God may allow some of His children to escape His love, but if so, it is done not in anger, wrath, rage, and righteous indignation, but in the way a human parent finally has to let their wayward teenager come to the end of his or her own road in a jail or halfway house. They cannot (and God does not) interfere with self-will, but both parents and God are heartbroken at the choices made by their children.
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December 9, 2005
For Theresephobes Everywhere
Been traumatized by the flowery prose of a 19th century French girl? Shied away from sugary metaphors and sweetness and light? Terrified that someone may find out that you've never really been able to make it through Story of a Soul?
Well, you're in luck! The Institute of Carmelite Studies has just released a new study edition of Story of Soul. Yes, just in time for _________, this book, edited by Fr. Mark Foley, OCD, (from the superb translation by Fr. John Clarke OCD) may be your answer for acute theresephobia--a chronic condition which, left untreated, can deprive you of the some of the great spiritual insights of recent times.
When you go to this page, page down a bit, you'll see the new study edition and a biography of St. Edith Stein. Naturally enough, they're tops on my Christmas list, and I've already bought them for my birthday present from my in-laws.
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October 3, 2005
St. Thérèse on Prayer
Do not be afraid to tell Jesus that you love him, even if you do not feel that you love him. Prayer is a cry of gratitude and love in the midst of trial as well as in joy.
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January 4, 2005
Little Flower/Mighty Oak
I was at Disputations perusing this thread when an utterly trivial botanical analogy took form in my mind.
You are all aware that an oak tree is an angiosperm--a flowering plant. An angiosperm is defined by the fact that the flowers are the reproductive organs of the plant and the seeds are usually enclosed in some form of protective covering--for example a fruit.
How many people have seen the flowers of the oak? Unless one is a botanist or took botany courses or is extremely observant, I would suspect that most people overlook oak tree flowers. An oak has tiny, indistinguishable little flowers called catkins. Unless you are trained, you probably don't even see them.
So I thought about St. Thérèse, the "Little Flower." Indeed, the smallest of flowers (or close to it). In looking for her flower, you miss the fact that they are merely the smallest part of an enormous edifice. The LIttle Flower is the hidden face of the mighty Oak.
This is productive in many ways because we can see St. Thérèse herself as that tower of strength, but we can see her, somewhat like the Blessed Virgin, always drawing attention to the Mighty Oak of which she is an integral part. And we can also recall that these little flowers give rise to innumerable seeds that each has the potential to become a mighty oak.
So, St Thérèse of Lisieux--Little Flower/Mighty Oak--a Saint whose little way is the path straight through the Forest to its Heart, Jesus.
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December 14, 2004
Thomas Merton on Suffering
By the way, much of the recent quotation is derived secondarily from Dwight Longenecker's beautiful study St. Benedict and St. Thérèse
from The Seven Storey Mountain
Thomas MertonThe more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you . . . the one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all; it is his own existence which is the source of his pain.
And this extremely powerful note from Longenecker follows:
from St. Benedict and St. Thérèse
Dwight LongeneckerIf the vow of stability forces me to stay in one place and face the grim reallitiles of llife, then I am also confronted by the glorious realities. Indeed, if we embrace ther grim reality, then the good reality is more vibrantly alive than we could ever have imagined. The climax of Thérèse's deathbed experience was an excrutiating participation in the suffering of Christ, but it was also an exhilirating participation in the love of Christ. On the afternoon of her death she cries, "Newver would I have believed it was possible to suffer so much!" but her last words are, "Oh! I love HIm! . . . My God . . . I love you!"
The everyday realities of being married, of loving who and where we are--these are the places where we are called to grow in sanctity, in the pain of feeling not appreciated, and in the warm embrace of family.
I go on, but I think you would all do yourselves a favor to acquire and read this wonderful book. It has blessed me over and over again.
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Supernatural and Natural
Commenting on St. Thérèse, von Balthasar says, "Everything Thérèse achieves at the supernatural level is rooted in something she has experienced at the natural level."
This is akin to the idea that we cannot love what we do not know. And it has enormous implication for good or ill for each of us. What I read here is that God has set the blueprint for our supernatural lives within our natural lives. What we are and what we experience each day is the grounding for what we will become if we follow God in the way He means to be followed.
We are each a member, a part of the body of Christ. Our place in the body is defined by who God made us to be. Who we are is defined by all that makes us up and all that has come to us from the hand of God. Where we most clearly fail is when we reject what has come to us be it good or bad. Every moment is a moment of grace to be embraced, it becomes part of the fabric of who we are now and who we are in the kingdom. Our sorrowful moments, our pains, our crushed dreams are all stepping stones on the path of Joy. When we reject sorrow or hardship, we are rejecting the fittings that will make us more useful for God's purposes.
St. Thérèse reminds us that there is pain and sorrow enough in a day, we needn't go looking for more. But we also need to learn how to embrace what does come to us and allow it to transform us into true worshippers and followers of the Most High. We are servants in the court of the beneficent King. When he bestows riches of any sort, we should be prepared to use them for the good of all those around us.
(Good God, you know I write this way because I need convincing. I know that what you give me is a good gift. Even as I am looking for the exchange counter, teach me how to use what you have given me, teach me to accept and love it as you love and accept me. Show me how to make your will my own in the little things of every day. Because these are the only stepping stones I have to your throneroom. Let me one day be a faithful attendant there. Amen)
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From St. Thérèse
"We must see life in its true light . . . it is an instant between two eternities."
"Let us turn our single moment of suffering to profit, let us see each insant as if there were no other. An instant is a treasure."
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December 9, 2004
A Rose Against Acedie
A rose for you from St. Thérèse:
"We who run in the way of Love must never torment ourselves about anything. If I did not suffer minute by minute, it would be impossible for me to be patient; but I see only the present moment, I forget the past, and take good care not to anticipate the future. If we grow disheartened, if sometimes we despair, it is because we have been dwelling on the past or the future."
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July 8, 2004
The Holy Family--An Ordinary Life--The Ordinariness of the Saints
More insight from St. Thérèse via H.U. Von Balthasar.
from Two Sisters in the Spirit Hans Urs von Balthasar[here von Balthasar quotes from Manuscript B of Story of a Soul]What does me a lot of good when I think of the Holy Family is to imagine a life that was very ordinary. It wasn't everything they have told us or imagined. Such as the story that the Child Jesus modeled a little bird out of clay and breathed upon it, so that it came to life . . . . In that case, why were they not trasnported to Egypt by a miracle--that would at least have been useful and not at all diffiuclt for the good God. They would have been there in the twinkling of an eye. But no, that did not happen. Their life was the same as ours.
Here the truth of the Incarnation is in question and therefore the truth of our whole life, which is only true when it is lived through to its utmost depths as it comes to us from its source, the Savior. Men always believe that they are supposed to attribute to the Lord every imaginable, superhuman "perfection"; and the fact that they do so may even be a token of their admiration. Yet ultimately this perfection lies in that very humility and love by which he became like us in everything except sin. For he was obedient unto death, learning this obedience through suffering
And what pious nonsense has been talked in the name of Mariology! Rather as if she herself were wielding the thong of cords at the purification of the temple, Thérèse ruthlessly kicks aside all the heaps of pious, well-meant untruths that have been wished upon the Mother of the Lord and in the end leave souls unnourished and prevent them from drink the living waters.
All the sermons on Mary I have heard have left me cold. . . . How I should love to have been a priest in order to preach about the Mother of God! I believe that just one sermon would have been enough for me to show what I mean. I would begin by showing how the life of the Mother of God is, in fact, very little known. One should not relate improbable stories about her, such as, for instance, that she went to the temple when she was a child of only three years in order to offer herself to God because she was so full of burning love and extraordinary fervor. Perhaps she went there quite simply out of obedience to her parents. . . . If a sermon on Mary is to bear tfruit, it must give a genuine picture of her life, as we are allowed to glimpse it in the Gospels, instead of something imagined. And it is surely easy to sense that her life in Nazareth and later must have been perfectly ordinary. "He was subject to them." How simple that is!
Too often, it seems, we may do the same with Saint's lives. We look upon their extraordinary accomplishments and then embellish them so that they become not so much role models as distant figures of impossible faith and piety. We neglect their ordinariness. We admire them, but we can come up with an extraordinary plexus of reasons why we couldn't possible emulate them in any way. How often have I heard, "Oh, I couldn't be like St. Thérèse, she was so holy from such a young age." So who is asking you to be like St. Thérèse? We already have one of those, and there are those in the world who would maintain that one is more than enough. (I used to be among them--no longer).
God gives us Saints not so much for slavish imitation as for encouragement. No one is called to be another St. Francis, St. Benedict, St. Anything. Each person is called to be a unique Saint, just as they are a unique person. The canonized Saints give us a glimpse of how others have achieved this. How they have achieved heroic sanctity despite a less than heroic start; how they have come to love God when they started by dispising Him; how their own persons and personalities are used by God to erect new Saints and new heroes, new examples that tell us--"You can do it."
After all, what is remarkable about St. Thérèse? She grew up a bourgeoise French lady, a potential snob, in a jansenist French society, overwhelmed with the exceeding wrath of God. She was treacly sweet and had a hellish temper at the same time and was stubborn as an ox. Nothing here particularly remarkable. And in that very fact lies our best hope. Just as there is nothing particularly remarkable about any of us, so too God can use that milquetoast or wanness and convert it into heroic virtue.
When I reflect on St. Thérèse this is what I most often think about--her humble beginnings did not stand in the way of her storming heaven, asking for, and receiving the gift of holiness, the gift of love. So what stops me? And when I think like this I realize that there is very, very little in the way--only myself. And if Jesus is willing, I can be healed.
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July 7, 2004
Some Quotations from St.Thérèse and a Word from Eliza
In Carmel, one is not allowed to strike false coins in order to buy souls.
I would broaden that to say In Christianity. Following the now-much quoted dictum that one may not do evil that good may result, false coinage would strike me as a great betrayal against the commandment that requires us not to "bear false witness against our neighbor." What would such false coinage do to the fabric and integrity of the faith?
Do you think you can satisfy our Lord with one of your nicely composed devotions? No. Words are not enough. In order really to be a victim of love, one must utterly surrender oneself.
Or in the words of that immortal theologian Eliza Doolittle (according to Lerner and Lowe--from the song "Show Me")
Don’t talk of stars
Burning above;
If you’re in love,
Show me!
Tell me no dreams
Filled with desire.
If you’re on fire,
Show me!
Here we are together in the middle of the night!
Don’t talk of spring! Just hold me tight!
Anyone who’s ever been in love’ll tell you that
This is no time for a chat!
I've said before and I'll state more clearly, God speaks even in show tunes. And this is one of the things He sings to us. "Don't talk of love--show me."
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April 18, 2004
Implications--Contemplation and the Active Life
I share the thoughts below because they have much troubled me the past several days. I have cast about for ways of saying what I would like to say and what I believe needs to be said, but this interior monologue expressed exteriorly is the best I could manage.
Tom of Disputations has stated that it is his belief that the teachings of St. John of the Cross do not comprise a universal call to holiness, that, in fact, they are really only for Carmelites and those inclined to Carmelite spirituality--not everyone is called to union nor to the contemplative life.
IF I believed that, I would have to discontinue blogging, because the only purpose to blogging is to share the NOT-EXCLUSIVELY Carmelite message of the call to Union with God. There would be no point in writing about these matters for the seven or eight Carmelites who are already on the boards, they already know this stuff as well or better than I do. I cannot say better than St. John of the Cross what he himself said.
However, I don't feel it to be true for several reasons. St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Thérèse of Lisieux are all Doctors of the Universal Church. Not doctors of the Carmelites, not merely great sainted leaders of the Carmelites. Now, there have been a good many founders of orders who are also Doctors of the Church, but many, as well who are not. It is not the founding of an order (which Teresa and John did not do) that makes one a Doctor of the Church. It is the articulation of a universal truth of the Church recognized as such. Thus what they have to say isn't spoken merely to Carmelites, or, for that matter merely to those inclined to mystical experience. Just as what St. Thomas Aquinas has to say is not confined to Dominicans or to those inclined to the exercise of intellect in Church matters.
For example, I quote John Paul II letter on St. Thérèse of Lisieux
Divini Amoris Scientia:
In these three different manuscripts, which converge in a thematic unity and in a progressive description of her life and spiritual way, Thérèse has left us an original autobiography which is the story of her soul. It shows how in her life God has offered the world a precise message, indicating an evangelical way, the "little way", which everyone can take, because everyone is called to holiness.
In fact, St. Thérèse's teaching is a distillation of the work of St. John of the Cross. Following His direction and that of St. Teresa of Avila, the Little flower concentrated their writings into the very concise, very small, very precise "little way."
from Divini Amoris Scientia
His Holiness John Paul IIFrom careful study of the writings of St Thérèse of the Child Jesus and from the resonance they have had in the Church, salient aspects can be noted of her "eminent doctrine", which is the fundamental element for conferring the title of Doctor of the Church.
First of all, we find a special charism of wisdom. This young Carmelite, without any particular theological training, but illumined by the light of the Gospel, feels she is being taught by the divine Teacher who, as she says, is "the Doctor of Doctors" (Ms A, 83v), and from him she receives "divine teachings" (Ms B, 1r). She feels that the words of Scripture are fulfilled in her: "Whoever is a little one, let him come to me.... For to him that is little, mercy shall be shown" (Ms B, 1v; cf. Prv 9:4; Wis 6:6) and she knows she is being instructed in the science of love, hidden from the wise and prudent, which the divine Teacher deigned to reveal to her, as to babes (Ms A, 49r; cf. Lk 10:21-22).
Pius XI, who considered Thérèse of Lisieux the "Star of his pontificate", did not hesitate to assert in his homily on the day of her canonization, 17 May 1925: "The Spirit of truth opened and made known to her what he usually hides from the wise and prudent and reveals to little ones; thus she enjoyed such knowledge of the things above - as Our immediate Predecessor attests - that she shows everyone else the sure way of salvation" (AAS 17 [1925], p. 213).
Her teaching not only conforms to Scripture and the Catholic faith, but excels ("eminet") for the depth and wise synthesis it achieved. Her doctrine is at once a confession of the Church's faith, an experience of the Christian mystery and a way to holiness. Thérèse offers a mature synthesis of Christian spirituality: she combines theology and the spiritual life; she expresses herself with strength and authority, with a great ability to persuade and communicate, as is shown by the reception and dissemination of her message among the People of God.
Thérèse's teaching expresses with coherence and harmonious unity the dogmas of the Christian faith as a doctrine of truth and an experience of life. In this regard it should not be forgotten that the understanding of the deposit of faith transmitted by the Apostles, as the Second Vatican Council teaches, makes progress in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit: "There is growth in insight into the realities and words that are passed on... through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts (cf. Lk 2:19 and 51). It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth" (Dei Verbum, n. 8).
In the writings of Thérèse of Lisieux we do not find perhaps, as in other Doctors, a scholarly presentation of the things of God, but we can discern an enlightened witness of faith which, while accepting with trusting love God's merciful condescension and salvation in Christ, reveals the mystery and holiness of the Church.
Thus we can rightly recognize in the Saint of Lisieux the charism of a Doctor of the Church, because of the gift of the Holy Spirit she received for living and expressing her experience of faith, and because of her particular understanding of the mystery of Christ. In her are found the gifts of the new law, that is, the grace of the Holy Spirit, who manifests himself in living faith working through charity (cf. St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., I-II, q. 106, art. 1; q. 108, art. 1).
We can apply to Thérèse of Lisieux what my Predecessor Paul VI said of another young Saint and Doctor of the Church, Catherine of Siena: "What strikes us most about the Saint is her infused wisdom, that is to say, her lucid, profound and inebriating absorption of the divine truths and mysteries of faith.... That assimilation was certainly favoured by the most singular natural gifts, but it was also evidently something prodigious, due to a charism of wisdom from the Holy Spirit" (AAS 62 [1970], p. 675).
8. With her distinctive doctrine and unmistakable style, Thérèse appears as an authentic teacher of faith and the Christian life. In her writings, as in the sayings of the Holy Fathers, is found that lifegiving presence of Catholic tradition whose riches, as the Second Vatican Council again says, "are poured out in the practice and life of the Church, in her belief and prayer" (Dei Verbum, n. 8).
If considered in its literary genre, corresponding to her education and culture, and if evaluated according to the particular circumstances of her era, the doctrine of Thérèse of Lisieux appears in providential harmony with the Church's most authentic tradition, both for its confession of the Catholic faith and for its promotion of the most genuine spiritual life, presented to all the faithful in a living, accessible language. . . .
10. The spiritual doctrine of Thérèse of Lisieux has helped extend the kingdom of God. By her example of holiness, of perfect fidelity to Mother Church, of full communion with the See of Peter, as well as by the special graces obtained by her for many missionary brothers and sisters, she has rendered a particular service to the renewed proclamation and experience of Christ's Gospel and to the extension of the Catholic faith in every nation on earth.
There is no need to dwell at length on the universality of Thérèse's doctrine and on the broad reception of her message during the century since her death: it has been well documented in the studies made in view of conferring on her the title of Doctor of the Church.
A particularly important fact in this regard is that the Church's Magisterium has not only recognized Thérèse's holiness, but has also highlighted the wisdom of her doctrine. Pius X had already said that she was "the greatest saint of modern times". On joyfully receiving the first Italian edition of the Story of a Soul, he extolled the fruits that had resulted from Thérèse's spirituality. Benedict XV, on the occasion of proclaiming the Servant of God's heroic virtues, explained the way of spiritual childhood and praised the knowledge of divine realities which God granted to Thérèse in order to teach others the ways of salvation (cf. AAS 13 [1921], pp. 449-452). On the occasion of both her beatification and canonization, Pius XI wished to expound and recommend the Saint's doctrine, underscoring her special divine enlightenment (Discorsi di Pio XI, vol. I, Turin 1959, p. 91) and describing her as a teacher of life (cf. AAS 17 [1925], pp. 211-214). When the Basilica of Lisieux was consecrated in 1954, Pius XII said, among other things, that Thérèse penetrated to the very heart of the Gospel with her doctrine (cf. AAS 46 [1954], pp. 404-408). Cardinal Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, visited Lisieux several times, especially when he was Nuncio in Paris. On various occasions during his pontificate he showed his devotion to the Saint and explained the relationship between the doctrine of the Saint of Avila and her daughter, Thérèse of Lisieux (Discorsi, Messaggi, Colloqui, vol. II [1959-1960], pp. 771-772). Many times during the celebration of the Second Vatican Council, the Fathers recalled her example and doctrine. On the centenary of her birth, Paul VI addressed a Letter on 2 January 1973 to the Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux, in which he extolled Thérèse's example in the search for God, offered her as a teacher of prayer and theological virtue of hope, and a model of communion with the Church, calling the attention of teachers, educators, pastors and theologians themselves to the study of her doctrine (cf. AAS 65 [1973], pp. 12-15). I myself on various occasions have had the joy of recalling the person and doctrine of the Saint, especially during my unforgettable visit to Lisieux on 2 June 1980, when I wished to remind everyone: "One can say with conviction about Thérèse of Lisieux that the Spirit of God allowed her heart to reveal directly to the people of our time the fundamental mystery, the reality of the Gospel.... Her 'little way' is the way of 'holy childhood'. There is something unique in this way, the genius of St Thérèse of Lisieux. At the same time there is the confirmation and renewal of the most basic and most universal truth. What truth of the Gospel message is really more basic and more universal than this: God is our Father and we are his children?" (Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, vol. III/1 [1980], p. 1659).
These simple references to an uninterrupted series of testimonies from the Popes of this century on the holiness and doctrine of St Thérèse of the Child Jesus and to the universal dissemination of her message clearly express to what extent the Church, in her pastors and her faithful, has accepted the spiritual doctrine of this young Saint.
A sign of the ecclesial reception of the Saint's teaching is the appeal to her doctrine in many documents of the Church's ordinary Magisterium, especially when speaking of the contemplative and missionary vocation, of trust in the just and merciful God, of Christian joy and of the call to holiness. Evidence of this fact is the presence of her doctrine in the recent Catechism of the Catholic Church (nn. 127, 826, 956, 1011, 2011, 2558). She who so loved to learn the truths of the faith in the catechism deserved to be included among the authoritative witnesses of Catholic doctrine.
Thérèse possesses an exceptional universality. Her person, the Gospel message of the "little way" of trust and spiritual childhood have received and continue to receive a remarkable welcome, which has transcended every border.
The influence of her message extends first of all to men and women whose holiness and heroic virtues the Church herself has recognized, to the Church's pastors, to experts in theology and spirituality, to priests and seminarians, to men and women religious, to ecclesial movements and new communities, to men and women of every condition and every continent. To everyone Thérèse gives her personal confirmation that the Christian mystery, whose witness and apostle she became by making herself in prayer "the apostle of the apostles", as she boldly calls herself (Ms A, 56r), must be taken literally, with the greatest possible realism, because it has a value for every time and place. The power of her message lies in its concrete explanation of how all Jesus' promises are fulfilled in the believer who knows how confidently to welcome in his own life the saving presence of the Redeemer.
I'm sorry to quote at such length, but I think it is time to put this whole question to rest. There can be no question that John Paul II and one assumes much of the Church from the time of the Saint's beatification has regarded here doctrine as sound and universal and her doctrine is nothing other than that handed down from the Bible and from the riches of her mother and father in faith, St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross.
Regarding St. John of the Cross, another opinion supporting my own from Doctors of the Church.
John's words are for all creatures and especially members of the Church. They do not have to live in monasteries or secluded settings or be contemplative. For John, God wants to transform each and everyone regardless of their lifestyle. All have to give the payback. We are "bandits". Intentionally or unintentionally we keep or are stingy with God who wants our loving thoughts, feelings, aspirations and desperations. John understood that to give up these for God results in a giving back to Him. John always reminds us that love is only repaid by love alone. We are spiritual thieves. We have imprisoned the Word made Flesh in God's many sanctuaries. God is more entrapped by His love for us than by our "stealing" him away from the celestial court. The kingdom of the heavenly court dwells in our midst, mystically and physically. Faith and love grasp this truth.
There is a mystic in each of us. It's God dwelling in us in a marvelous and invisible manner. God is absolute Mystery. God told Moses "I am who I am" One can not say more about God's presence than what God told Moses. The mystical apostle, St John, described God's nature: God is love. The mystical doctor's message is where there is no love, put love and you will find love. He was absolutely convinced that nothing is obtained from God except through love.
(I apologize that I was unable to find the document of Pius XI declaring him a Doctor of the Universal Church.
In my opinion, the fact that St. John of the Cross was a Carmelite in no way narrows the scope of his advise merely to those who are Carmelite. He is a teacher of the Universal Church--not without flaw or error, but certainly on a par with other Doctors of the Church. Just as St. Francis, St. Francis de Sales, St. Thomas Aquinas, and all of the great saints are not teachers of one small sector of the Church alone, neither is St. John of the Cross. One need not be Carmelite to heed his advice. Moreover, John of the Cross can be viewed simply as a synthesist of Doctrine up to his time. Finally, John spent more time as a director than as a teacher. Much of his teaching is really about teaching one to understand where one is on the spiritual path. He did very little direct teaching about a "method" or a "mode" of praying--he simply marked the path and told us how to recognize signs that tell us we need to progress and move on.
So I don't think the blog is in any danger. I stand on firm ground when I categorically state that St. John's teaching, like St. Therese's and St. Teresa's and St. Catherine of Siena is meant for all. If one chooses not to follow it, that is one's own business, but to suggest that because one does not choose to follow it, it necessarily follows that the teaching is not for all is, in my opinion and the opinion of a great many others whose thought means a great deal more than my own, erroneous. St. John advises all of us, Carmelites and Catholics of no order. What he has to say is not for a select few, the "chosen" or the called. Nor is meant only for the Carmelite order. This, in point of fact, is part of what is meant when one is declared a Doctor of the Universal Church. To object that his saying is difficult and therefore not required of us can be legitimately compared (in a far lesser degree) to stating that Jesus' teaching is hard and therefore not required of us. Truly St. John's teaching is not a requirement of salvation (whereas Jesus’ is); however, the difficulty it presents in no way abrogates its efficacy in achieving a life of holiness.
Are there other ways to do the same thing? Perhaps, but they all come to the same thing: "Sell all you have, give it to the poor, and then come follow me." "You cannot serve God and Mammon" (or God and Venus, or God and Ceres, or God and Nature, or God and . . .) it is God alone. This is the core of the doctrine of St. John of the Cross and his call to contemplation and union is meant for all, either now, or in the life to come. There is no getting around it. The vocation of Christian life is perfection in charity that can only come about through stripping oneself (through grace and the Holy Spirit) from all attachments to things less than God. Hard, but true, and stated time and again in the teaching of the Church from the lips of Jesus to the present day.
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October 15, 2003
For the Feast Day of La Madre
From The Autobiography (XXV: 22)
O my Lord, how true a friend art Thou! how powerful! Thou showest Thy power when Thou wilt; and Thou dost will it always, if only we will it also. Let the whole creation praise Thee, O Thou Lord of the world! Oh, that a voice might go forth over all the earth, proclaiming Thy faithfulness to those who love Thee! All things fail; but Thou, Lord of all, never failest! They who love Thee, oh, how little they have to suffer! oh, how gently, how tenderly, how sweetly Thou, O my Lord, dealest with them! Oh, that no one had ever been occupied with any other love than Thine! It seems as if Thou didst subject those who love Thee to a severe trial: but it is in order that they may learn, in the depths of that trial, the depths of Thy love. O my God, oh, that I had understanding and learning, and a new language, in order to magnify Thy works, according to the knowledge of them which my soul possesses! Everything fails me, O my Lord; but if Thou wilt not abandon me, I will never fail Thee. Let all the learned rise up against me,--let the whole creation persecute me,--let the evil spirits torment me,--but do Thou, O Lord, fail me not; for I know by experience now the blessedness of that deliverance which Thou dost effect for those who trust only in Thee. In this distress,--for then I had never had a single vision,--these Thy words alone were enough to remove it, and give me perfect peace: "Be not afraid, my daughter: it is I; and I will not abandon thee. Fear not."
And in a sense, this may be another response to Mr. O'Rama (see below)--that perhaps the ennui that sets in is a trial of sorts--bear up under it, offer it as a small sacrifice to God and make progress in the Little Way. All of our choices have echoes in eternity.
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Seeing All Things New
I didn't want to leave so important a discussion in the comments box below, so I pull it out:
Comment from T.S. O'Rama
I'll have to think about it some more. I certainly am not implying a minimalist or Puritan philosophy! Not in the least. I guess my issue is how to live on a Wednesday afternoon - as Walker Percy put it so beautifully. Living in Central Ohio - mecca of civilization that it is - tends to make life a little dry sometimes. I know you won't believe it, but it's not exactly Florence, Italy. There's a part of me that believes/wants to believe that life is gloriously interesting in Central Ohio if I'd only see the spiritual war more clearly. But perhaps this comment is what I should've said on my blog (I can fix that)...
And my response
I understand what you're saying. I lived there for 10 years. And yet. . . there are places where things are even less exciting. I live in the entertainment capital of much of the East Coast and a Hub for most of the world, but after you've tasted of that spring the water begins to run a bit flat. Not to say that it isn't a wonderful place to be or that there is anything wrong with the wonders that surround me--but, believe it or not, there are aspects of life in Central Ohio that I do miss--to wit--
(1) The summer film series at the downtown theatre
(2) The Shekinah Glory festival with quilt auction out in Plain City
(3) The Bucyrus Bratwurst Festival, The Waynesville Sauerkraut festival, and the Circleville pumpkin festival.
(4) Ready accessibility of the Mounds at Newark, the Chilicothe Mounds and Governor's House, the not too distant Serpent Mound, and the place down near the Golden Lion -- ?Fort Ancient?
(5) The libraries and the booksales for various libaries
So there are delights in Central Ohio or Nearby. (Polka Barns up near Cleveland, for example). It isn't a hopping place--but on the other hand it is no worse than a great many. And life is exciting if one views it daily with the gratitude for the gift that it is.
My greatest anecdote about life in Central Ohio comes from a fieldtrip a friend of mine led when a graduate student there. They had a group of kids from inner city New York in a big bus--they're about twenty or thirty miles WEST of Columbus--you know how that gets, when suddenly there's a huge commotion from the back of the bus and the driver is told to "Stop the Bus, Stop the Bus!" Fearing the worst, he did so, and from the back three kids pile out of the bus. My friend got out with the other counselor to break up whatever is going on and they see the three kids with cameras taking pictures of one of those vast fields between Columbus and Dayton. One of the kids says, 'What's that?" pointing to the crop growing at the side of the road, and my friend answers "Corn." And they said, "Ain't no way that's corn--corn comes in a can." My friend says, "That's what it looks like before it goes in the can."
The point is merely to say that one of Thérèse's chief teachings is that we must become like little children to whom all things are new again. We need to teach ourselves to see that corn as though we had never seen it before--to marvel at its growth , and yes, its beauty. We need to accept what comes to us and rejoice in the great generosity with which it is given. THAT is what gives life savor and interest and THAT is what comes of loving Jesus as a little child--nothing can every be ordinary again.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:50 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 6, 2003
Advice for All Christians
from Ordinary Graces
compiled by Lorraine KislyDo not condemn or think hardly of those who cannot see just as you see, or who judge it their duty to contradict you, whether in a great thing or a small. I fear some of us have thought hardly of others merely because they contradicted what we affirmed. All this tends to division; and, by every thing of this kind, we are teaching them an evil lesson against ourselves.
O, beware of touchiness, of testiness, not bearing to be spoken to; starting at the least word; and flying from those who do not implicitly receive mine or another's sayings!
Expect contradiction and opposition together with crosses of various kinds. Consider the words of Saint Paul: "To you it is given, in the behalf of Christ [for his sake, as a fruit of his deeds and intercession for you] not only to believe but also to suffer for his sake."
It is given! God gives you this opposition or reproach; it is a fresh token of his love. And will you disown the Giver; or spurn his gift, and count it a misfortune? Will you not rather say, "Father, the hour is come that thou shouldst be glorified; now thou gives thy child to suffer something for thee; do with me according to thy will?" Know that these things, far from being hindrances to the work of God, or to your soul, unless by your own fault are not only unavoidable in the course of providence, but profitable, yea; necessary for you. Therefore receive them from God--not from chance--with willingness, with thankfulness. Receive them from men with humility, meekness, yieldingness, gentleness, sweetness. Why should not even your outward appearance and manner be soft?
--John Wesley
It seems that often we tend to view God as very one sided--He gives only those things that we view with human eyes as good--opposition, crisis, and difficulty come from somewhere else. But they do not--God allows everything that happens to us, He wills, either permissively or ordained, all that occurs. This includes difficulties. Every moment comes from His gracious hand and Paul tells us: "ALL things work to the good of those who love Him." All, not some, not many, not most, but ALL things work to the good of those who love Him. I cannot pretend to know the wisdom of difficulty, the regeneration that comes from crisis--but as I do believe God to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, I cannot shy away from the fact that what I view as bad as well as what I view as good comes to me from His hands. I can trust that He knows what He is doing, or I can presume to know better. In such circumstance, I prefer to believe that what I experience is for a cause, my own betterment, or the betterment of those around me. I also want to believe that it comes to me from God Himself as a gift, the problem is that some gifts are so terribly difficult to accept and to open.
And that leads us back around to St. Thérèse's little way. Perhaps I need to be like a very small child and upon opening up the gift, play with the wrapping and the package more than the clothing or other unknown and unappealing item within. Let God work His will in me and rejoice in it--a skill to learn and apply.
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October 1, 2003
Another Meditation on St. Therese
is available here.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:32 AM | TrackBack
Doctor of the Church
You all know by now that Thérèse is a doctor of the Church. As such the Church has declared that she has taught valuable doctrine concerning core church teachings. In particular, her "little way" is seen as a valuable contribution to the understanding of the Church.
However, the definition is that of a doctor of philosophy and the original meaning of Doctor. Thérèse is also a doctor in the modern sense. Through her deep understanding she corrects certain ailments in the church that come through exposure to the secular world.
from Spiritual Childhood: The Spirituality of St. Thérèse of Lisieux
Msgr. Vernon JohnsonThe word "love" is so often used for something merely emotional or sentimental that we hesitate to use it in connection with our religion. St. Thérèse rescues us from this false reserve and puts the word "love" again upon our lips in its true meaning.
In the midst of us cold and grown-up lovers, with our love hardened by the difficulty of life, dulled by its dreary routine, stilted by convention, and fettered by human respect, God has placed St. Thérèse to rescue us from all that is false in our concept of love and lead us back to that simple, direct, spontaneous love which, in the depths of our souls, we really long for.
As we enter the crypt of the basilica at Lisieux, we find ourselves beneath the great arch which spans the entrance to the nave. At the base of one side of the arch are written these words of scripture: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighour as thyself. On the other side are the words of St. Thérèse: "There is but one thing to be done here below: to love Jesus and to save souls for Him that He may be more loved." Thus does she make the words of Scripture live again, words which we have known from childhood, but whose meaning for that very reason has lost much of its significance.
It may be urged that a love of such simple directness as St. Thérèse's is possible only for special souls, gifted with extraordinary supernatural graces, and that therefore it is not within the compass of the ordinary person. But St. Thérèse's life was not distinguished by anything spectacular. Her way, as she used to say, was very ordinary, fashioned through the normal means of grace common to us all. The extraordinary thing in her life was her simple fidelity to those means of grace.
Thérèse is a gift to us from God. Through her, as through St. Bernadette, He once again showed us that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary sanctity through perfectly ordinary means. In short, He showed us that once again “His Grace is sufficient.”
Of ourselves we can do nothing but sin. But with God we are, each of us, a saint and a source of hope for the people we meet every day. Thérèse has pulled us out of a sense of love that grasps and seeks to fill a great emptiness and shown us a love that comes from a fullness and reaches out to others. More, because she was not extraordinarily gifted—she did not have the mind of a St. Thomas Aquinas, or the high teaching of St. Francis de Sales, St. Alphonsus, or St. John of the Cross—she is accessible to us. Moreover, she promised to make herself accessible. Her heaven would be spent doing good on Earth. The good she does begins with our choice to follow the little way and to show to all around us the loved she showed while on Earth. We will each do this in our own way; however, our best tribute to her today would be one small action, one little sacrifice that takes us away from ourselves and puts us squarely with God and with our neighbor. Thus we can spend our Earth building the Kingdom of Heaven through God’s grace.
St. Thérèse, Doctor and Daughter of the Most Holy Catholic Church, pray for us that we all burn with the fire that you had for God and for the salvation of souls.
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Happy Feast Day
To all my Carmelite Brothers and Sisters, Happy Feast Day.
To the rest of you, happy St. Thérèse Day. May this day see showers of roses from heaven for all of you. May the prayers of St. Thérèse be a source of blessing, peace and healing.
And today is an especially good day to invoke St. Thérèse in the cause of Terry Schiavo and Michael Schiavo. St. Thérèse knew illness intimately. She died an atrociously painful death at a time when painkillers were but little available and not at all available to those cloistered because of their vows of poverty and obedience. She understands sickness.
May her prayers help to free Terry Schiavo from the terrible death-sentence spelled out for her.
More importantly, Thérèse, was completely caught up in the spirit of saving souls. She prayed for an unrepentant murderer before his death, let us pray that her prayers will lead Michael Schiavo to a place where he can better understand what he is doing and where he can choose to do otherwise. May her powerful intercession break the bonds of Satan so clearly present here.
Blessings and joy to all today.
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September 30, 2003
Learning from Our Little Sister
from St. Benedict and St. Thérèse
Dwight LongeneckerIn the end Thérèse made a heroic sacrifice. Her painful death, combined with a terrible spiritual darkness, took her into a full identification with the Lamb of God; but in keeping with her little way, she never aspired to a sensational sacrifice. The way of the Lamb was found through the daily routine of self-sacrificial living. "Sensational acts of piety are not for me--this shall be my life, to miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word, always doing the tiniest things right and doing it for love."
This relates indirectly to a discussion at John da Fiesole's on hypocrisy. Was Thérèse a hypocrite because she smiled when she didn't feel like it? Were these small sacrifices a sign of an interior haughtiness and hypocrisy--a servile and sniveling way to curry God's favor?
Rather, I think that the exterior actions and the will to them, gave rise to a heart of love. Yes, she did view them as sacrifices, they were small labors, but labors willingly undertaken because they gave Love a home. The actions were not hypocrisy, but humility. It was not hypocritical for Thérèse to note that there was a sister among them at whom no one would smile willingly and that she undertook to do so. Had she done so in order to win the Sister to herself, that might at least be labeled flattery. But Thérèse did so because that is what love demanded. She did so because she could bring a soul to God if only for a moment.
It is in actions like these that we get the clearest understanding of what the Little Way is and what we can do to emulate it. Starting the day with the love of God firmly in our hearts, we make an attempt to be pleasant before we've had our morning coffee. We restrain the broad spectrum of the ways to express ourselves at those who feel traffic regulations are for other people. We smile and treat pleasantly people who we would rather have nothing whatsoever to do with. And we do it not to curry favor with people, and not to get on God's good side, but to be for just a moment a placid reflection of God in a life of turmoil. We offer a momentary glimpse, a taste of salvation--in the words of Omar Khayyam:
"A momentary taste of being
from the well amid the waste."
That is what the Little Way offers to the world. What it offers to us is the possibility of a life of daily joyous sacrifice, of doing God's will and not our own wills, of working in humble obedience toward the spread of Love and the news of Jesus' saving work. Ultimately the sweetness we offer in a brief respite from the usual actions of our society can make a "Kingdom of Heaven" here on Earth. And always we do what we do because we love Jesus.
St. James taught us that "Faith without works is dead." St. Thérèse in her ageless ever-young wisdom added "Love without works is dead." Love without sacrifice is no reflection of the One True Love shown for all eternity by arms outstretched on the cross.
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September 26, 2003
On Miracles and Simplicity
In this passage, Mr. Longenecker makes some incisive and interesting points:
from St. Benedict and St. Thérèse: The Little Rule and the Little Way
Dwight LongeneckerTo speak plainly, the main problem for sophisticated people is not that miracles are incredible, but that they are an error in taste. To profess belief in miracles takes one perilously close to faith healers, the souvenir stalls of Lourdes, and lurid pictures of Jesus with googly eyes. There is a breed of spiritually minded people who reduce Christianity to the highest form of aesthetics. Beauty us to Truth, but beauty without truth is false, and that which is false and beautiful does not remain beautiful for very long. If the faith is no more than a pretty face, then the aesthetes are also atheists. Since miracles are an error in taste, it is far more subversive and therefore far more Christian to accept the miracles. It's also much more fun--rather like wearing a hideous hat on purpose.
If Benedict's biography gives the sophisticated soul miracles to stumble over, Thérèse's story gives tasteful grown-ups an even bigger obstacle. To find Thérèse, the modern soul has to climb over the stumbling block of her style. We modern-day pilgrims are presented with a nineteenth-century teenage nun with a pretty smile and schoolgirl enthusiasms. She speaks in language that seems archaic and sickly sweet. Among other sentimental touches she calls herself a little flower of Jesus and a little ball for the child Jesus to play with. She thinks God is her "Papa" and likens herself to a bowl of milk that kittens come to drink from. It's easy to turn away such greeting-card spirituality in distaste, but this is precisely the first test. Thérèse swamps tasteful people with sentimentality and sweetness, and only when they survive the taste test can they begin to appreciate her wisdom. She is one of the best examples of the secret Catholic truth that says the tasteful cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. (p. 46-47)
There is so much more profound and interesting insight on these pages that I must encourage you all to get the book if you can. This passage continues and says many wonderful and remarkable things about the style and what Thérèse was and what she was trying to do.
I think style is the biggest complaint I hear about Thérèse; how people can't push themselves through the sticky images and the sweetness and light. And I sympathize--greatly. Up until the magisterial translation offered by the ICS, I had similar feelings. The Beevers translation and earlier works were just dreadful and incredibly off-putting. I couldn't find any spirituality for all the treacle. When the Carmelite Group proposed reading this piece of school-girl drivel I just about went mad (although, truth to tell, I was instrumental in proposing it.) But when I read it, and really searched it to find out what the Church saw here, I was truly astonished at the depths that opened up before me. What was school-girl drivel suddenly became something else entirely. I can't explain it. All I can say is that this person who prizes above much else elegance of language and expression, sophistication of writing and idea suddenly discovered the elegance of saying precisely what was right for the person who was writing. It opened a door to riches beyond imagination. From saccharine schoolgirl, my image of Thérèse transmuted into Great Saint, perhaps one of the very greatest of Saints--a true Doctor in the sense of conveying in language anyone who wished to could understand profound truths about prayer and our relationship with God.
And in fact, I think Longenecker has hit upon a key point. Entry to Thérèse means submitting with great humility to the fact that a teenaged "silly" schoolgirl has something profound and life-altering to teach those of us who have been in the world approaching twice as long. Surely this babe in the woods could not know anything we have not already learned. And the barrier that demonstrates approach with proper humility is the ability to get past the language and the image. Until then, you are not really permitted a glance at the profound wisdom and truth that is offered through the writings of this unlikely nun.
Thérèse presents more than anything else a challenge to our sensibilities and our aesthetics, a challenge that offers a small taste of the meaning of detachment. We must detach from our own preferences, our own sense of style, our own love of the high language and great art of many of the other saints, and accept a story-book saint--flat, wooden, and girlish. And as in some fairy-tale story, when we do so, she comes alive and tells us truths that will change our lives and our relationship with God.
(Oh--one additional tip for the hopelessly stymied--for whatever reason, all of this that is so off-putting in English, is greatly subdued if you read it in French--this discipline is finally what allowed me to enter the door and sit for a while at this great teacher's feet. Praise God!)
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September 24, 2003
More from Longenecker's Remarkable Study
There are great insights within the book, so many it is impossible to share them all. I thought this excerpt regarding "ordinariness" was especially helpful for those seeking a way.
from St. Benedict and St Thérèse: The Little Rule and the Little Way
Dwight LongeneckerBenedict and Thérèse call ordinary Christians to extraordinary perfection--not by being extraordinarily perfect, but by being perfectly ordinary. Being ordinary means letting go every vestige of snobbery and learning that we are not special after all. Once we grasp this troublesome truth it is easy to make the mistake of thinking that "being ordinary" mean fitting in and becoming "one of the boys." While being ordinary had nothing to do with snobbery it also has nothing to do with being one of the crowd. Snobbery has destroyed many lives through its snooty pride, but the reverse snobbery that will do anything to "fit in" and be part of the hoi polloi is also destructive. It is just as artificial for the aristocrat to affect working-class manners as it is for the social climber to put on an upper-class accent. In that sense, being common is just as false as being uncommon. Being ordinary means being none other than who we are. As a result it is just as possible for a duchess to be as ordinary as a dustman.
Besides noting that Our Sunday Visitor needs a careful copyeditor--the insights to be gained from this passage are enormous. I particularly like the notion of being called to the extraordinary not by extraordinary endeavors but by the perfection of the ordinary. In other words, become who you REALLY are in Christ and you are more than halfway to your goal. Your responsibility is not to perfect the gifts given to others, but those given to you. While I might look on with admiration at some of my very favorites reasoners--John da Fiesole at Disputations, and Mark at Minute Particulars, or with a certain awe at Mothers who want to be and are extraordinary (as there tends to be a raft of blushing among this set, I will not venture names), or any number of other gifts I observe in all my blogland travels--humor, political insight, knowledge of the present state of the world, etc. --I am not called to perfect any of those remarkable talents or virtues. I am called only to recognize those gifts God gave me and to offer them back to Him, well cared for, polished, and in better condition than they came to me.
Too often we deride our own accomplishments and our own endeavors with some sort of apology--either looking for compliments or encouragement, or genuinely reflecting our puzzlement over our own unique constitution. We are, each of us, what we are and that is all we should be, in the sense that we are not called to be other than what we are in Christ. We are called to be perfected in Christ. Anything less does not honor God, it buries the talents He gave us to be returned without interest. However, when we follow our calling in constant prayer and devotion, seeking always to cleave to God's path and not our own, we will, through His grace, return a harvest of souls that we have not been privileged to see--saved and brought to God through our work. Nevertheless, the work of our own perfection must, of necessity affect those around us. In achieving perfection, we drag into the Torrent of His love countless souls whom we may simply have passed in a hallway and smiled at.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:15 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 21, 2003
Our Fallen Condition
I spend an awful lot of time wondering why I am so good at not doing what I should. It's not remarkable: Paul said, "I do the things I would not do, I don't do the things I would do and I have no strength in me." What I fail to find amid the consolation of numbers and longevity is the real solution to the problem. Of ourselves, we are capable of so little, and everything is dependent upon grace.
So I come back around to the "little way" and wonder. Perhaps the will is so weak that it is a matter of one thing at a time with th conscious deliberation. Perhaps that is what the little way is about. Little children have many "deficiencies" compared to adults. But one thing that they have to their advantage--when they are focused on something, nothing else in the entire world exists. A common ploy from childrearing books suggests that when your child is focused on the electrical outlets or your version of a Ming vase, the best thing to do is refocus.
Perhaps what I lack is sufficient focus on the moment. My mind is here, there, or somewhere else, and the moment is left to fend for itself as I'm battling the monsters of the future or the past, or indulging in the dreams of grandeur and wealth, or at least the delights of the thought of a new plaything (PDA, PDA).
Perhaps part of the little way is not only to do little things, but to take on the focus of the little child and in the moment that is before us, here and now, to make the right choice, with the help of grace. And these moments, one at a time, ultimately lead to Glory. If each choice is made in obedience to God, then we foster both trust and love of God and we move onward.
The little way sounds so simple. It sounds as though no doctrine at all, but the depths and the subtleties of it are such that I am not certain that we will ever plumb the fullness of it.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 11:24 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
September 19, 2003
More on St. Thérèse
Regarding the difficulties many have with reading the work of the Little Flower
from St. Benedict and St. Thérèse: The Little Rule and the Little Way
Dwight LongeneckerIf the first-time reader has to struggle with the mundane minutiae of sixth-century monastic life in Benedict, then in Thérèse he has to struggle with an even more difficult dose of "ordinariness." At least there is some historical interest in reading about the sleeping arrangements of sixth-century monks, but Thérèse takes us into the detailed life of the nineteenth century French bourgeoisie. Her writings are full of spiritual points made through the events of ordinary days. So we are plunged into the details of visits to relatives, a first train ride, trips to the seaside, and the traumas of a little girl's school days. We are told about playtime with her sisters, quarrels with the maid, and the joy of cuddle with Mommy and Daddy. Those who are looking for a lofty spiritual treatise will find in both Benedict and Thérèse a hefty does of ordinary life instead.
And doesn't this just make perfect, natural sense. Ordinary life is where our spirituality plays out. Even if are advanced contemplatives, we are not transported bodily from where we spend time sweeping the floors and caring for children. God speaks to us in the trauma of our children, in the difficulty of getting a stain out of the carpet, in the trials of cleaning baked-on cheese and who knows what-all off of the casserole. He speaks to us in the commute to work and in the trials of the day (getting enough paperclips--getting rid of too many paperclips, the copier is skipping pages--the copier is making two copies of every other page). Spirituality is not divorced from life, it is reinforced by life. Our reactions and our actions of each day are what come out of our hearts. They are where we are most real, where we have the least time to don a mask and put on the "company face." And so they are the best mirror of our spiritual life. Exalted states of prayer are, for most of us, the exception rather than the rule. As Longenecker says elsewhere in the book, "The divine is in the details." And the details are ordinary.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:35 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
On the Little Way
Dwight Longenecker, a contributor over at Envoy, has written a delightful and insightful book titled St. Benedict and St. Thérèse: The Little Rule and the Little Way in which he talks at some length about the convergences of the twain:
fromSt. Benedict and St. Thérèse: The Little Rule and the Little Way
Dwight LongeneckerBenedict and Thérèse call for a kind of childhood in which perfect freedom is found in strict adherence to the rules.
If Father Benedict and Sister Thérèse silence the theologians, they silence the religious leaders too. All those who would divide the Church over grace or works, Scripture or Tradition, sacraments or word, service or sanctity, will be united in the wisdom of Benedict and Thérèse. If any Christian reads the two saints of the little way, they will also be united with every other disciple of Christ. Benedict draws all Christians together because he speaks from a time before the terrible divisions in Christ's Church. Thérèse unites Christians because her little doctirne of grace alone is a magnet to both Catholics and Protestants. Balthasar says, "One would have to be blind not to see that Thérèse's doctrine of the little way answers point by point the program outlined by the Reformers and that she presents the Church's bold, irrefutable answer to Protestant spirituality." (p. 42)
There is much, much more worthy of your attention in the pages. And I have to say that browsing through the IVP catalog--a mainstay of evangelical publishing, I've been quite surprised by recent offerings. Naturally, they offer all the Church Fathers. But they also are offering books on other saints. Notably they offer a biography of St. Francis of Assisi (an easy Saint to like and even to admire), but mysteriously, they offer a biography of St. Teresa of Avila, who while very engaging and likeable, did not put too fine a point on what she thought about Luther and his ilk stirring up trouble for the Church.
While I know that it is not humanly possible, I do not refrain from the prayer "E pluribus unum." As we once were, one church, so we should work to become again. But I say this cautiously because in the course of returning to Christ's intention for the world, we should not be willing to compromise or sacrifice one iota of the revealed truth of Jesus Christ, either through Biblical Revelation or the understandings of Tradition including the magisterium of the Church. This will forge a weak and false unity. However, so long as there are LaHaye and Jenkins types who fear "one world church" we need not worry too much about unity--and that is a terrible shame.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:59 AM | TrackBack
September 17, 2003
From the Root to the Tree
Following on the post below, it occurs to me that if we accept God as Father, the next step stemming from the radical image is to truly regard each human being as brother and sister. Again, we're good at using the words, but for most of us that fact has no reality because it does not influence in the slightest the way we live. That is where the truth of our beliefs lay--if they shape what we do they are real. If they are silent and do not inform us, they are dead, beliefs in word only.
The reality of the human race as family escapes many of us. Perhaps it escapes most of us. Maybe only the great missionary saints really have any idea of what it meant. But it stems from the fact that God is our Father. He is our Father in more than a distant and fearsome way. He is our Father in a way that will transform and change us, if we allow it. More,
from Psalm 139:13-16
13 For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.
14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully [and] wonderfully made: marvellous [are] thy works; and [that] my soul knoweth right well.
15 My substance was not hid from Thee when I was made in secret, and intricately wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuity were fashioned, when as yet there were none of them.
(KJV)
He has thought us, each one, individually into being. He has guided our making with a tender hand. He is the founder and root of our being. Our parents conceived us, but He guarded us on the way to our birth, and He nurtured and knew us in the womb. How much more a Father then, than one who may only supply the genetic material.
We are family. We so often show it through sibling rivalry and our attempts to beat each other up. Perhaps it would be better if we thought of ourselves all sitting down to Thanksgiving Dinner after a pleasant day of preparation and reacquaintance. Perhaps we should try to be on our best behavior rather than parade our "us and them" attitude.
The logical consequence of truly believing that God is our Father is to believe that we are all brothers and sisters. If we do believe this then it is time to stop making excuses about why we cannot express it, or how we aren't called to this or that ministry, and make the attempt to treat the people we encounter each day more than civilly. We must learn to treat them with a deep-rooted love of a family with so loving a Father.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:12 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
The Radical Fatherhood of God
Perhaps the chief contribution of St. Thérèse to the understanding of the Church is the radical understanding of the Fatherhood of God. I use "radical" in its etymological fullness. The Fatherhood of God is the Radix or root of how He wishes us to approach and understand him. This became clear to me while reading a passage of a book by Vernon Johnson titled Spiritual Childhood. I paraphrase the passage that affected me. Johnson wrote that when Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, he did not start with "Oh Invisible Creator of the Universe," "Oh King of all that is and ever will be," "Oh majesty ineluctable and unknowable by man." Rather He started with "Our Father."
We know this. We pray it every day. We pray it so much, in fact, that it has become threadbare and nearly meaningless. More than that, many of us have enough problems with the Earthly image of Father that having another Father isn't particularly appealing. And yet, this is how God wishes to be known first. He wants us to understand that He is our Father. He is the one who gives everything to protect us. He is the one who nurtures us and encourages us in the expression of His gifts to us. He delights in our triumphs, he sorrows in our failures and our rebellions. He chastises as all good fathers must do if they hope to help the child succeed in the world. Only the world He wants us to succeed in is not this material realm, but the world that comes next, for which this is the training ground.
Why does it matter that we understand God as Father first? Primarily because all other understanding stems from that. He is all of the other titles listed above and more, but all of that reality only makes sense when it is seen in light of the root understanding God as Father. In other words, God as King can be daunting, terrifying, unnerving. Approaching the throne-room of a king is not a prospect pleasing to most peasants. However, when that throne-room is Daddy's office, the prospect is much less daunting. Yes, He still commands our respect and our awe (the fear from which proceeds all wisdom) just as when we were very little children our fathers commanded our attention and respect and sometimes awe. But above all these other mingled emotions is our love. When God is Father first, our first reaction to Him is the seemingly limitless love that a child feels for his father and mother. That why Father is root. We are to approach Him as a "little child." Not as a rebellious teenager, not as a mature adult, but as a little child, one for whom trust has not been eroded away--one for whom love is still a reality. We need to return to the place when God dwells within and come out renewed, ready to love and to accept Our Father.
Thus, in Thérèse's little way, we must first understand and encounter God as father, and we must reify that. In other words, this is not an intellectual understanding or a game with words. The reason the family is so fundamentally important in the life of the Church is that it gives us both a glimpse of the life of the Trinity AND it gives us the experience to understand the truths of the Bible. Without experience of Father, it becomes very difficult to relate to God in the way He most desires. One of the great horrors of divorce is that often the rift in the family means that there is no real understanding for young children of the nature of Father.
God is Father first. He wants our love as Father. He wants our trust as Father. He wants our acceptance and unstinting love. He wants our unconditional love.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:58 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
June 20, 2003
On Humility
On Humility
Laura asked in a comment to a post below
What does humility look like in our everyday lives? What do we think it is, but is really only a disguise for pride.
And there were a couple of very fine answers. I particularly liked Tom's:
St. Catherine of Siena wrote that "humility proceeds from self-knowledge." I think self-knoweldge is necessary and sufficient for humility -- if you know who you are and who you aren't, what you can do and what you can't, you will be humble, and if you are humble you know these things. So I'd take signs of self-knowledge as signs of humility, and their absence as an implication of pride.
And Alicia's point is a powerful one and the specific case of Tom's more general answer:
sometimes humility is in silence, sometimes in speaking up. what it isn't is aptly described by charles dickens in david copperfield - mr.micawber (I think) - the one who was 'so 'umble!"
Humility will look quite different on different people depending in large part on their personalities and on the gifts that God has given them. Because humility is at its core truest knowledge of the self and knowledge of the self with respect to the grand Other that created all that is, humility is best displayed when we are not wearing one of the many masks that we don for purposes of moving through society. A truly humble person does not change in demeanor from one interaction to another. Paraphrasing from what you must all (by now) recognize as one of the great "sacred texts" in my life, "(Being a Gentleman) Isn't so much a matter of treating one person better than another, but treating them all the same. You treat a flower girl as a duchess and I treat a duchess as a flower girl..." (Henry Higgins).
That is the reality. Humility is self-knowledge and true self-knowledge allows us to look at others and see Christ. When we can do THAT, then what can we do but treat everyone equally and show ourselves for what we are, lowly servants, "Not fit to undo the strap of His sandal."
However, you can fake this as well. You can be in public service oriented and mild and meek and smiling, and return to your house kick off your shoes and say, "Thank God, that's over with, what a unwashed mob." Humility must be carefully nurtured and cultivated. It starts from knowledge of self, as St. Catherine of Siena and countless others have pointed out. But it grows through prayers (as do all virtues and habits of sanctity) and it grows through aligning our will with the will of God and (to quote another Text of some considerable import) "Looking for the Good in people." (Pollyanna). Because when your look for the good in people (as the film shows), you will surely find it. And why is that so? Because Christ is in our fellow human beings. So we sheer away all the prickly surfaces, all of the personality that we don't care for, all of the tics and quirks that irritate us and we embrace Christ in that person.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux cultivated humility with a smile. Everyone knows the tale of the nun whom no one cared for--a particularly, prickly, sour, disagreeable nun all the other nuns did their best to avoid. St. Thérèse went out of her way to smile at this person though she had no real affection for her. She smiled brilliantly every time she met her to the point that the nun once commented to St. Thérèse, "You must have a most special affection for me. Everytime you see me you give me such a broad smile." What Thérèse loved was the image of Christ in this person and she subdued her own natural inclination to dislike the nun so that she was able to recognize Jesus.
Humility must be cultivated through prayer, love (expressed in works, even so small a work as a smile at someone you dislike), and detachment. These four and others are constant companions. It seems, and I may be very wrong here, that none may grow long without the others and they all grow with the cultivation of one. Cultivating humility drives one toward prayer--when we really look at ourselves and see ourselves as God does, when we have solid self-knowledge that includes both our wretchedness and the fact that despite our wretchedness we are prized as much as or more than the most precious Person who ever lived, we come to understand the supreme value of every living soul. We cultivate humility through knowledge of Christ--in the scriptures, in the writings of the great saints, and in prayer. We also cultivate it through a daily (or more frequent) examen to see how we have been greeting God in our fellow human beings.
Tom's post mentioned St. Gaspar del Bufalo's "Maxims for the Pursuit of Humility" (available courtesy of Father Keyes at the excellent New Gasparian site. Posted on this site is a kind of examen list, St. Josemaria Escriva's Seventeen Evidences of a Lack of Humility. If you are not disinclined to Opus Dei spirituality, you might visit this site and use the very fine search engine to look up and read the brief passages on humility.
Humility is "Something Beautiful for God," it is ultimate self knowledge, and at the same time, paradoxically, self-forgetfulness in the beloved. It is a garment cut to the individual and expressed quite differently by different people. It might appear shockingly off-putting, as when Mother Teresa spoke at the Presidential prayer breakfast and raked the people there over the coals for the culture of death they supported and cultivated. Humility is true love so that it never lies, nor does it seek to wound or hurt.
That's as much as I can say to help you on the way. All of the saints address it, many of them tell you how to cultivate it far better than I can do. (After all, I have to spend some time doing so before I would know what to tell everyone else.) But humility is the important garment that holds many of the virtues together and allows truthful expression of them. Humility guides us in what to say and how. Humility may show up as humor, as when St. Teresa of Avila spoke to the Almighty after falling from her horse, "If this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few." Humility speaks the truth in love, always. I pray for this virtue, but do not spend enough time actually seeking it out. I pray for an increase in the resolution to cultivate and express humility for by so doing, I can help the lives of those around me to be just a little better.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:21 AM
June 12, 2003
Holiness Is Not an Option
Holiness Is Not an Option
It is a requirement of all Christians, whatever their state of life. Our task is to find God's way of holiness for each one of us. Sometimes I think Jesus's statement, "My Father's house has many mansions," is a reference to that fact that holiness is the truest realization of self. Holiness is becoming a mirror for God, we all reflect exactly the same thing--the eternal, unchangable, omniscient face of Love Incarnate. But surrounding the glass that reflects the image is a frame--it is the frame that is individually crafted and worked on by our loving Father.
Think about it--you have Catherine of Siena, Rose of Lima, Thérèse of Lisieux, Thomas Aquinas, John of the Cross, Francis of Assisi, and so on. Each one is a model of holiness, but each one is unique. Thus, when one says something like, "I can't be like Thérèse" (as I sometimes hear at my Carmelite Meetings), my response is always, "Why would you want to be? God already has one of those." God gives us the Saints as examples, not as templates. Not one of us is constituted in exactly the same way as any one saint, and so our paths will be different. And in being different our paths will light the ways of people in the future.
We must be holy as we are--not as Thérèse or Francis Xavier is--but as we are. In holiness we have worked with God to polish the mirror in which all must see the image of God, and so have the proper light to see the glorious frame that is the individual Saint. Do not despair because you cannot do as others do. We are not called to that. We are called to do as God would have us do, and His grace strengthens us to that end.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:48 AM
October 14, 2002
Dealing with God
Sometimes, in fact more often than not, God seems some very distant figure--rather like a stage director in the tragedy or comedy of our lives. I know that I often suffer from this. When I am saying morning prayer and I'm feeling particularly dry, I imagine the words trailing up like smoke from a fire, taking an idle turn about Heaven and joining those much more grateful, robust strands of incense in the great Throneroom where certainly God can notice them, but does He? I often feel at a very great distance. And the reality is, of course, that I am, because I have placed myself there. I have chosen to be at a great distance for one reason or another that I may not even be aware of.
In the course of a day, or a week, or a month, I can and do move closer, or I should more properly say, I feel closer, because I could not possibly be closer. Because of my baptism and the grace of my confirmation I have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit that proceeds from the love of the Father and the Son for each other is part of my make-up. I may ignore Him, I may not turn a thought to Him at any time. I may choose some other substitute for Him. But He is there, and when I cannot pray, He is praying with groanings beyond human hearing.
But what about the feeling? I've always wondered about this, and it is a very difficult point. We humans place so much trust in feelings that change and transmute, are here today and gone five seconds later. We can plunge from ecstatic happiness to tears in a matter of moments. We can rise from the abyss (but that always seems to take a great deal longer). St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila teach us that feelings are another example of "consolations" in prayer. They are sometimes granted for the purposes of strengthening our resolve, but they are not to be sought after.
My preferred thinking about this feeling of closeness parallels the teaching of St. Thérèse of Lisieux on Love. While Love carries with it feelings of involvement, it is not primarily a feeling, it is a continual series of actions--it is a movement of the will that results in a movement of the person to action on part of the loved one. So too the feeling of closeness to God. We should not trust or rely upon feeling, it is deceptive and potentially destructive. Here we must trust our minds to allow the truth to trickle down to our hearts and change them. Whether we "feel" God's presence or not, we are told that He is present. It is a tenet of our faith that not only is He present, but He lives within us. And if we direct our attention to Him for a moment, we know it--we may not feel it, but we do know it in some way that transcends rational thought. Trust the knowing and forget the feeling. In this case the feelings may be manipulated by any number of factors. Loving God and feeling His presence, is an act of will that results in tangible actions toward those around us. It is something that should occupy our every waking moment. Loving God, who loves us enough to live within us despite conditions that would resemble deepest, darkest Detroit at our very best times, is the one key to life on Earth. Loving Him despite what we may feel about His distance or His lack of concern.
God is concerned about us. He does love us. And sometimes the love He shows us is harsh and difficult. We would prefer to live our own lives than the life of love of God. I think about St. Thérèse and the awfulness of the last 18 months of her life--the terrible darkness in which she lived, uncertain even of the existence of God, and yet, in some mysterious way, never doubting and never ceasing her enormous love for Him. l so much so that her dying words, "O How I Love Him," still resound in the miracles she performs and in the immediacy with which she seems to attend each person who earnestly implores her assistance.
Closeness to God is a reality. Our feelings are untrustworthy. As Scrooge says to Marley regarding why he does not trust his senses, "A little thing can disturb them. You could be a bit of undigested beef or a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you." So too our feelings about God--they are moved by little motions within us--fear and anger are the principle currents that drive how close we feel. We cannot control our emotions, or if we do so they may ultimately turn on us anyway, but we can balance the emotional sense of things with the reality that we face over and over when we open the Bible. We are "the apple of His eye," we are "written on the palm of His hand." We are the people of John 3:16--"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth on Him should not die but should have life everlasting." When our feelings get in the way, we need to retreat, even if only momentarily, to reality.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:01 AM
October 1, 2002
Some Short Pieces of Wisdom from St. Thérèse
Here are a few quotes to honor this great Saint:
To the pure all is pure (Titus 1:15), the simple and upright soul sees not evil in anything, since evil exists in impure hearts only and not in material objects.
You are wrong to find fault with one thing and another, and to seek that all should yield to your way of viewing things. We want to be like little children, and little children know not what is best, to them all seems well; let us imitate them. Besides there would be no merit [in obedience] were we only to do what would appear reasonable to us.
Be not afraid to tell Jesus that you love Him; even though it be without feeling, this is the way to oblige Him to help you, and carry you like a little child too feeble to walk..
I am not always faithful, but I am never discouraged; I leave myself wholly in the arms of Divine Lord; He teaches me to draw profit from all--both good and ill that He finds in me. (St. John of the Cross). He teaches me to speculate in the Bank of Love, or rather it is He who acts for me without telling me how He goes to work, that is His affair and not mine; my part is complete surrender, reserving nothing to myself, not even the gratification of knowing how my credit stands at the Bank.
Now that I am about to appear before the good God, more than ever do I understand that there is but one thing necessary: to work solely for Him, and to do nothing for self or for creatures.
To write books of devotion, to compose the most sublime poetry, is of less worth than the least act of self-renunciation.
One could go on at great length, but this is a nice sample of thought, and even of some of the dry humor ("knowing how my credit stands at the Bank.) St. Thérèse is a marvelous, wonderful, sublime, and valuable gift to all of us. St. Thérèse pray for us! Please spend your heaven doing good on Earth for those of us who are weak sinners.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:08 AM
August 24, 2002
A Wonderful Prayer/Brief Mediation of St. Therese
This brief meditation stopped me in my tracks the first time I read it.
Ô Marie, si j'étais la Reine du Ciel et que vous soyez Thérèse, je voudrais être Thérèse afin que vous soyez la Reine du Ciel ! ! !
Trans: O Mary, if I were Queen of Heaven and you were Therese I would want to be Therese so that you could be Queen of Heaven.
This is one of those examples of humility that boggle the mind. I still am boggled by the implications of this simple thought. It is beautiful and reflexive and for some reason absolutely mind-bending. It's kind of a Carmelite koan or something, I just can't seem to encompass the perfection of its thought.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:38 AM
August 7, 2002
On Coping with Sinfulness
One more piece of advice to Mr. Roberts at his new blog on dealing with sin comes from Therese of Lisieux. In one of her letters she tells a little parable of two sons, each of whom had offended his father. One of the sons went and hid, fearing his father's anger. But the other saw his father and went and threw himself into his father's arms and kissed and hugged him and promised with a small child's promises not to commit the same offense again. Therese concludes that though the father is perfectly aware that the child will sin again, he could not but forgive one who gave such an ardent and authentic display of love. Therese recommends throwing yourself into the all-embracing love of the father as the finest tonic for less-than-perfect behavior.
And then of course there is the remarkably bracing and strengthening support of our brother St. Paul who reminds us of the human condition, "I do the things I do not wish to do, and I don't do the things I wish to do, and I have no strength in me." And later, "In my weakness is His strength." So, if I have no strength in me (due to my constant reversion to sin), I approach the throne of grace and with Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection say to God, "See what happens to me when you leave me even for a moment to walk by myself?" (Of course, God never leaves us, but He does allow temptations).
And finally remember the caution of that old reprobate Oscar Wilde, "I can resist anything but temptation." And seek to do a bit better.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:26 AM
August 2, 2002
The Language of Therese
A reader named Therese comments on St. Therese:
Also, St T de L wrote in Victorian times, with Victorian piety and it sounds a little (well, a lot) icky to our ears today. But read her and the truth wells up through all the "Jesus' toy" parts (which I find difficult, forgive me).
This is often then reaction when one encounters some of the older translations of the great "Story of a Soul." I noted first time through it that it was fairly overwrought. However, reading the ICS translation by John Clarke, I did not have that reaction. Also, perhaps because French is not my first language, these elements did not seem so out of place in the French. Further, in previous translations much of this was exacerbated by her sister Pauline's edits that cut away some of the more acerbic humor. I share this without knowing the expertise of the commentators. Also, it is far easier to overlook these sorts of things when you are reading in a group searching for signs of the "Little Way."
Therese did not spell out her doctrine in any clear way as did John of the Cross or Teresa of Avila (unless you count Manuscript B of Story of a Soul, published as chapter 9 of the ICS edition.) So finding the little way can be greatly deceptive if you do not have a good guide. Many are pulled off into the "small things with great fidelity" side road. While that is certainly PART of the Little Way, it in no way constitutes the core of it. Misinterpreted it leads people into strange pathways and convolutions. Our Lay Carmelite Group just finished a year-long study of Story of a Soul and I feel as though we might have cracked open the door a bit. Perhaps in the practice of some of the things Therese suggests, the door will open further.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:08 PM