Oct. 1, 2018: St. Therese of Lisieux
Oct. 1, 2018: St. Therese of Lisieux
AN ELEVATOR FOR SMALL CHILDREN
Thérèse desired to be a saint, she wanted to love with all her being, but she was faced with her own limitations and her inability to change by her own efforts. She wanted to avoid discouragement, which is the main danger in the spiritual life. Father Libermann, a Jew who discovered Christ and then became a priest and a founding member of the Holy Ghost Fathers, used to say: “Discouragement is the downfall of souls!” Therese needed to find a little way, a new, simple way, of living the Gospel: an elevator to take her to Jesus.
Therese went to the Scriptures to look for the answer. She could have found it in the Gospel directly. After all, there is a very clear pointer to such an elevator in Jesus’ words: “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.” That text could have been her starting point. But she went to find it in one, or rather two, passages from the Old Testament. Let’s continue reading: Then I looked in the holy books for some sign of the elevator that I desired, and I read these words that had come forth from the mouth of Eternal Wisdom: “Whoever is very little [and Thérèse underlined these words] let him come to me.”
Who was the “little one” that Scripture speaks of? It was Thérèse herself, fired with a great desire for holiness but suffering over her own powerlessness, anguished to find herself so weak and small. What was God saying to this “little one”? Not “You need to improve. I’m not happy with you—what you’re doing isn’t enough!” But the opposite: “Whoever is little, let him come to me! Don’t be scared … come!” This is no other than the invitation “Come to me” that we find in the Gospel. “All you who labor, who are bent under the weight of your burden, who find the demands of the Law too heavy, come to me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Thérèse continues: So I came, guessing that I had found what I sought. Wishing to know, O my God, what you would do for the little child who answered your call … In response to this invitation, the little child came to God simply and trustingly. What would happen to her? I continued my search and this is what I found …
Thérèse then offers a second quotation from Scripture, a magnificent passage from Chapter 66 of Isaiah. It revealed what God would do for the little child, the person who wanted so much to be a saint, who saw herself as being so poor and imperfect and suffered over it, yet came to God anyway. Would God accuse her of her faults? No, he was going to console her: “As a mother caresses her baby, so I will comfort you; I will carry you at my breast and rock you in my lap!”
God was going to console her, telling her: “Don’t worry, don’t be discouraged by your weaknesses.” We soon see why: “It is precisely through your weaknesses, in your poverty, that I will act with my power; what you can’t do with your own strength, I will do.”
Thérèse did not say all this in the passage we are looking at; it’s a summary of what she would explain elsewhere. But I believe that these were the mysterious words of consolation God addressed to her. “Instead of bearing your poverty as a handicap, an obstacle, accept it and welcome it as a grace.” This is her revolution, her novelty. It is at one and the same time a new way of looking at God and a new way of looking at ourselves, a way of reconciliation with ourselves in all our weakness and poverty.
- By Fr. Jacques Philippe, “The Way of Trust and Love”
