St Thérèse of Lisieux – Model for
Missionaries
By Dwight Longenecker
‘In spite of my littleness, I would
like to enlighten souls as did the Prophets and the Doctors.
I have the vocation of the Apostles. I would like to
travel over the whole earth to preach your Name and to
plant your glorious cross on infidel soil. But…one mission
alone would not be sufficient for me, I would want to
preach the Gospel on all the five continents simultaneously
and even to the most remote isles. I would be a missionary,
not for a few years only, but from the beginning of creation
until the consummation of the ages.’[i]
With these words Thérèse of Liseux expressed
her fervent wish to serve God as a missionary. Her wish
almost came true because her own convent in France was
hoping to send some sisters out to a sister house in Saigon,
and before her health failed Thérèse had been selected
for the missionary enterprise. But by the age of twenty
four Thérèse was dead. Her life had been almost totally
hidden. At her death she seemed just another obscure nun
in a country convent in France. Most of the nuns didn’t
recognise her great holiness. One said, ‘I cannot understand
why people speak of Sister Thérèse as if she were a saint.
She never does anything notable.’[ii] Thérèse
had great ambitions to serve God, but at her death it looked
like her life had come
to nothing. Nevertheless on her deathbed Thérèse said she
believed God had granted all her desires.
One of her desires was to be a doctor
of the church and amazingly, one hundred years after her death
the girl who was never a great scholar was declared a doctor
of the church. In the simplicity of her life and message
Thérèse brought a refreshment of doctrine Catholic life.
Since then countless books have been written about her
teaching both by simple souls and world-class theologians
like Hans Urs von Balthasar. Over the last few years we
have also seen a remarkably literal realisation of Thérèse’s
dream to preach the gospel to every continent. Through
the pilgrimage of her relics around the world people from
every continent will be touched by her life and message
in a fresh way.
Millions have flocked to be near
the remains of Thérèse because of her simple teaching about finding
God within the little-ness of life. They have been drawn
to her Little Way, seeking a pattern for holiness in their
own lives. But the Little Way of Thérèse is also a pattern
for much wider ambitions. In 1927 Thérèse was declared
the patroness of missions. During her lifetime she corresponded
faithfully with two missionary priests, and countless missionaries
have looked to her for inspiration and help since then.
Her desire to be a missionary was fulfilled in another
peculiar way in the life of the twentieth century’s most
famous missionary—Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Teresa of
Calcutta took her name from the saint of Lisieux and used
her Little Way as the spiritual basis for her order. It
is not an exaggeration to say that the worldwide order
Missionaries of Charity are actually an outworking of Thérèse
of Lisieux’s dream to be a missionary one day. Herself
a tiny woman, Teresa of Calcutta holds hands with Thérèse
of Lisieux to show the way forward for our own efforts
at evangelising a needy world.
One of the problems with evangelising
in the world today is that so much of the world has heard
the Christian message, but haven’t seen Christianity in
action. As G.K.Chesterton said, ‘Christianity has not been
tried and found wanting, it has not been tried.’ We have
penetrated the world with the Word of God, but we have
often neglected to penetrate the world with the Love of
God. A famous unbeliever has mocked Christianity by calling
it, ‘Poor little talkative Christianity.’ In other words
our evangelisation has too often been all talk and no action.
Too often we are better at theory than practice.
Thérèse of Lisieux shows us a different
way forward. There are three aspects to her way of mission
which reveal a way forward for each Christian. First of
all Thérèse had a vocation of love. After searching for
how she could serve God she finally cried out with delight, ‘My
vocation is love!’ She saw that her love could beat at
the heart of the Church for all mankind. Thérèse’s mission
begins and ends with love, and that love is an intimate
gift which she gets from Jesus himself.
Thérèse learned that love is a gift which
comes through prayer, and it is a gift that is given through
prayer. It was through her life of prayer that she tapped
into the powerhouse of love. She became a channel for that
love in the world through her prayer. When she prayed for
the unrepentant murderer Pranzini Thérèse showed that prayer
changes things, and that even the hardest heart can be
softened through prayer. She famously prophesied that she
would ‘spend her heaven doing good on earth.’ It is through
her continued life of prayer and worship in heaven that
she continues to help pour God’s grace into the world and
continues to show us how prayer provides the power for
mission.
After love and prayer comes action.
Thérèse’s
life in the convent was small and simple, but within the
confines of her life she was given the opportunity for
action. So when an older nun asked for help, but was ungrateful,
Thérèse gave her more help with her willing smile. When
faced with a difficult sister she went to extraordinary
lengths to befriend her and show her that love which everyone
else, including Thérèse, found difficult. The whole community
and the unlovable nun herself were convinced that she was
Thérèse’s favourite friend. Only later did it emerge how
hard Thérèse had worked to love and understand the unlovable
sister. In her loving prayerful actions Thérèse doesn’t
tell us how to evangelise—she shows us.
Thérèse of Lisieux’s pattern of evangelisation
is therefore based in the simple rule of Love and Prayer
put into Action. Teresa of Calcutta put that theory of
love into action in a fresh way. Her nuns work hard to
show the love of Christ, but they pray just as hard—knowing
that it is their contemplative life of prayer which fuels
their life of loving action in the world. Through her dynamic
order missionary order, Teresa of Calcutta shows each
one of us how to show Christ’s love for the world. Following
the pattern of Thérèse of Lisieux and Teresa of Calcutta
we can re-establish our own priorities in our life of witness.
First of all, our witness to the gospel must be grounded
in a fervent life of prayer. Its’s simple. No prayer, no
power. We cannot evangelise on our own. Only through God’s
grace can we reach others with the good news. Secondly,
Actions speak louder than words. Its an old saying, but
a true one. Whether it is on the level of the whole church,
the diocese, the parish or our own individual lives, our
Christian message must be acted on with determination and
enthusiasm. If our message is not acted on it is not real.
Finally, actions cannot stand alone. Every time we have
the chance we must be able to bear a witness to the faith
that is within us. We don’t need to be theologians, priests
or religious to speak the Word of Life. In fact, the most
powerful witness comes from ordinary people whose lives
have been transformed by the beauty, love and power of
Christ.
The little nun of Lisieux knew the
beauty, love and power of Christ at a depth few of us can fathom.
Her identification with the gospel was much more than head
knowledge. She had allowed God’s grace to transform her
into the likeness of Christ. This is really why Thérèse
is the patroness of missions: because in her total identification
with Christ she shows us the best way to evangelise the
world. The secret is to become so like Christ that we don’t
need to say much. Instead people simply see Him through
us. This was the simple, but profound experience of Thérèse
of Lisieux. It is the mystery at the heart of her little
way, and the ultimate pattern for our own ministry in the
world. Words and actions are part of the process, but at
the end we must be transformed into His likeness, because
the world is not so much interested in religious theory
and debate. Instead men and women come with longing hearts
like those enquirers in the book of Acts who cried out
to the apostles: ‘Sirs, We would like to see Jesus!’
Dwight Longenecker used to be an Anglican
minister. He is now a Catholic writer and broadcaster.
His new book, Benedict and
Thérèse – The Little Rule and the Little Way is published
by Our Sunday Visitor in Spring 2002.
