This first featured in Touchstone Magazine
Thérèse of Lisieux -
A Saint for All Christians
By Dwight Longenecker
It was during a hitch-hiking pilgrimage to
Jerusalem that I met a saint. After four years as an Anglican
curate in Southeast England I had three months free before
taking up my next post. I decided to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem
staying in monasteries and convents en route. I wanted
a holiday, but I also wanted the chance to reflect on my faith
and explore the historic heartland of Christendom.
The first leg of the
journey was through the Western French province of Normandy.
After an overnight stay
at the historic Abbey of Bec I hitched to the town of Lisieux.
I knew Lisieux was the home town of St Thérèse, and planned
to stop not because I had any particular interest in the saint
called ‘the little flower’ but because, as a pilgrimage destination
there would probably be a religious hostel where I could spend
the night.
I had been brought up
in a fundamentalist home in Pennsylvania. My ancestors were
Mennonites, Brethren and
Reformed Christians. It was during my time at Bob Jones University
that I got interested in C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, Anglicanism
and all things English. I’d felt the call to ministry, and
when I had the chance to study at Oxford it seemed too good
an opportunity to miss. During training and after ordination
into the Anglican ministry my understanding of the Church moved
in a more Catholic direction, although I considered myself
firmly Anglican. Devotion to someone as thoroughly Roman Catholic
as ‘St Thérèse of the Child Jesus’ was not high on my list
of priorities, to say the least.
With her simpering expression,
clutching a bouquet of roses and a crucifix, Thérèse seemed one of the
worst expressions of nineteenth century Catholic kitsch. What
stories I heard about her life didn’t help. She was ‘God’s
little girl’-- a kind of Catholic Emily Dickinson who fed Roman
Catholics’ unfortunate taste for greeting card Christianity.
I liked a robust faith and she represented the worst excesses
of ‘meek and mild’ Christianity—the kind that fosters doormats,
not door keepers.
Nevertheless, I approached
Lisieux with a certain detached curiosity. I found my way to
the pilgrim’s hostel
and was greeted by a cheerful and practical nun. She showed
me to a simply furnished room, I took off my shoes, shrugged
off my back pack and sat down to relax. After dinner that night
I wandered through the town. Adjacent to the hostel was the
Carmelite convent where the saint lived for just nine years
before her death at the age of 24. On the hill on the edge
of town was a huge basilica built in honour of the saint.
This little girl was certainly important to the Catholics,
and I resolved to keep an open mind and try to learn a bit
more about her.
The next day I visited
the sites associated with the saint and picked up a paperback
biography. I was impressed
by what I discovered. It was true that Thérèse is called the ‘Little
Flower’ but if she is a flower, then she is a steel magnolia.
Under that sentimental language and kitsch image I discovered
the story of an amazing individual; a Christian soul who was
tough as well as tender. If she clutched roses, those roses
definitely had thorns. I was not won over to her completely,
but my reading and exploration was enough to make me want to
learn more.
Marie Françoise Thérèse Martin was born in
Alençon in Normandy on January 2 1873. Her father was a watchmaker,
and her mother made lace to supplement the family income. In
the summer of 1877 her mother died, and that autumn M. Martin
moved Thérèse and her four older sisters to a small house called Les
Buissonets in the nearby town of Lisieux. Thérèse was a
sensitive and loving child, and the home was very devout, but
conventionally middle class. She took part in a religion which
was woven seamlessly into the tapestry of everyday life. Her
Christian family was a sharing in the Holy Family, and God
was everywhere present. Thérèse spoke of her early awareness
of Christ by saying, ‘From the age of three I have never refused
the good God anything.’
She was four and a half
when her mother died and from that point she went through ten
years of religious
scruples and nervous hypersensitivity. On Christmas Eve when
she was fourteen she describes how she suddenly became aware
of God’s healing and regained her spiritual strength. She considered
this experience to have been her conversion. In his book, The
Way of the Lamb, John Saward describes the conversion experience
in terms of her childhood being re-born in a fresh way.
In the early
hours of Christmas Day 1886 Thérèse was given what she called the ‘grace of my complete
conversion’ which was at the same time, the ‘grace of leaving
my childhood.’ One might say she gave up one childhood for another: she left
behind natural childhood, which is but a passing state, in
order to make more intensely her own the supernatural childhood
of her Baptism…Here is the paradox of the Gospel. It is only
when we convert and become like little children that we reach
our Christian maturity.
By the time of this conversion
experience she had not only lost her mother, but two of her
older sisters
had left the family to enter the Carmelite convent in Lisieux.
The Carmelites are a strictly enclosed contemplative order,
and when a girl entered the Carmel she took Christ’s call to
leave one’s family for the sake of the kingdom quite literally.
The nun would never again leave the convent, and strictly rationed
family visits would be conducted through a grille and monitored.
After her Christmas conversion
Thérèse was
determined to follow her sisters into the dedicated life of
prayer at the Carmelite convent. Rules forbade entrance to
the convent at such an early age, but Thérèse persisted, first
of all winning her father’s, then finally the bishop’s approval
by the winter of 1887. In the meantime, on a visit to Rome
she had the nerve to disobey all the adults and ask Pope Leo
XIII himself for approval to enter the convent. He is reported
to have smiled, patted her cheek and muttered that if it was
God’s will she would enter. It was God’s will, for in April
of 1888, when she was fifteen, Thérèse entered the Carmel of
Lisieux. She lived what appeared to be an unremarkable life
completely hidden in Christ.
Her way was to find God
hidden in ordinary life and to become a saint not through heroic
accomplishment,
but being lost in ordinariness. Indeed, many who knew her overlooked
her sanctity. One sister testified that Thérèse was ‘certainly
good and conscientious but nothing outstanding….she had nothing
to suffer and was rather insignificant.’ Another said, ‘I cannot
understand why people speak of Sister Thérèse as if she were
a saint. She never does anything notable.’ They missed the
point. Thérèse had become humble. Her theory was, ‘One must
behave like everyone else, not leaving the ranks either for
weal or for woe, not pushing oneself forward or becoming the
centre of attention; one must behave as if there were nothing
lacking.’ Nothing was lacking for she had learned to trust
in God utterly. ‘Sanctity’ she wrote, ‘consists in a disposition
of the heart that leaves us little and humble in God’s arms.
Aware of our weakness and trusting unto folly in his Fatherly
goodness.’
Her life and her ‘little way’ became
famous through her autobiography entitled, The Story of
a Soul. Autobiographies
are notoriously egotistical. Thérèse wrote hers under religious
obedience. She was commanded to write the first part of her
little book as a family memoir. The later parts were intended
as a contribution to her obituary. Only after her death did
her sisters consider publication, and when the first two thousand
copies were printed everyone wondered how they would ever get
rid of so many books. Yet in the first twelve years after publication
forty seven thousand copies were sold. In 1914 Pope Pius X
introduced her cause for beatification and called her ‘the
greatest saint of modern times.’ Thérèse was beatified by Pius
XI in 1923, and in 1925, just twenty eight years after her
death, there were 500,000 people in Saint Peter’s Square to
celebrate her canonisation by Pius XI. The fame and honour
of this provincial French girl continued. In 1944 she was declared
patroness of France along with Joan of Arc; and at the centenary
of her death in 1997 she was declared a Doctor of the Church
by Pope John Paul II.
As I read more about
Thérèse I began to wonder, ‘If
she has been so celebrated, if she has been made a doctor of
the Church, there must be more to this girl than puppies and
kittens spirituality.’ Books about Thérèse and her teaching
are numerous. The best theological treatise is by the Swiss
theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar. His study of Thérèse’s teachings
makes up half of his volume entitled, Two Sisters in the
Spirit. Balthasar picks out some startling themes in Thérèse’s
writings. Locked within her simple style are the insights of
a remarkably gifted spiritual theologian. Thérèse is radical
in her Christianity, and yet with great simplicity she echoes
the great Christian themes which unite all Christians. As a
former Evangelical I found themes echoing through Thérèse’s
writings which struck chords with my Evangelical convictions.
Although she writes within the context of nineteenth century
French Catholicism, she challenges its problems and proclaims
the essence of ‘mere Christianity.’
To understand Thérèse of Lisieux one has to
penetrate her literary style. She writes with a child like
wonder and innocence which seems cloying to those more used
to ‘adult’ language. Her context of nineteenth century French
Catholicism allows an unfortunately romantic and sentimental
form of expression. There is a vital literary point here however;
Thérèse’s theme is spiritual childhood. It is right and proper
that her theme, her life and her literary style are a unity.
If Thérèse’s style is difficult for grown-ups, then so is her
content, for the ‘way of spiritual childhood’ can also seem
impossibly naïve and sentimental. Certainly those for whom
style is everything will not appreciate Thérèse’s content even
if they get past the style. Perhaps ‘taste’ has to be left
at the door of heaven. If one has to become as a little child
to enter the kingdom, then sophisticated adult taste is not
allowed. If this is so, then Thérèse’s saccharine style becomes
either a stumbling block or a stepping stone.
Thérèse is famous for preaching the ‘little
way of spiritual childhood.’ Although this teaching doesn’t immediately
appeal to adults, but it is precisely the thing we like least
which may challenge us most. Like the serious disciples we
want to push the little child away, but as John Saward points
out, Thérèse is only echoing the gospel which states quite
firmly that ‘Unless you become as a little child you cannot
enter the kingdom.’ A little child shall lead them, and whether
we find Thérèse’s sweet innocence appealing or appalling is
a silent judgement on us, not her. Her little way of spiritual
childhood might seem sweetly naïve, but when considered more
closely it is not a way of sentimentality, but a way of surrender.
It involves an utter sacrifice of self and reliance on the
love of God the Father. So Thérèse sums it up, ‘The little
way is the way of spiritual childhood, the way of trust and
total surrender. To remain little means recognizing one’s nothingness,
expecting everything from the good God as a little child expects
everything from its father.’
Thérèse’s reliance on God the Father is based
on her confidence in God’s grace. Catholic asceticism of her
day tended to focus on feats of spiritual heroics. Refreshingly,
Thérèse has no time for such good works. For her good works
alone are no more than a spiritual beauty treatment. Because
she trusts in grace, not good works her teaching undermines
the Pharisaism of organised religion. So Balthasar writes, ‘Her
battle is to wipe out the hard core of Pharisaism that persists
in the midst of Christianity, that human will to power disguised
in the mantle of religions that drives one to assert one’s
own greatness instead of acknowledging that God alone is great.’ So
Thérèse says, ’Jesus does not demand great deeds but only
gratitude and self surrender’.
In the midst of a Catholicism
which encouraged heroic action Thérèse stresses that without grace her actions
are worthless. Although she has sacrificed everything she considers
herself an unworthy servant, ‘Even if I had performed the deeds
of Saint Paul’ she writes, ‘I would still consider myself an
unprofitable servant; I would find that my hands are empty.’ Elsewhere
she says, ‘I reflect that He will be very much embarrassed
as regards me: I have no works…well, He will render to me according
to his own works!’ In another place she writes of her dependence
on grace in terms worthy of Martin Luther himself, ‘In the
evening of this life I shall appear before you empty-handed,
for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justices
have stains in your sight. So I want to be clad in your own
Justice and receive from your Love the possession of yourself.
I want no other throne or other crown than you my beloved!’
If Thérèse does not fall off the Pelagian side
of the horse she doesn’t slip into Quietism either. The Christian
soul is not a dead leaf tossed by the wind. Thérèse has no
time for passivity. Her little way might mean total trust in
God’s grace, but it is that reliance on grace which empowers
us to do our utmost to co-operate with God’s will. So she says,
We must do everything that is within us: give without counting the
cost, practice the virtues at every opportunity, conquer
ourselves all the time and prove our love by every sort of
tenderness and loving attention. In a word, we must carry
out all the good works that lie within our powers—out of
love for God. But it is truly essential to put our whole
trust in him who alone can sanctify our work, who can indeed
sanctify us without works, since he may even bring forth
children of Abraham from the very stones. It is necessary
for us, when we have done all we can to confess that we are
unprofitable servants, while hoping that God in his grace
will give us all that we need. That is the way of childhood.
Her explanation of the
grace and works conundrum is typically simple and profound, ‘Being little means not attributing
the virtues we practice to ourselves in the belief that we
are capable of them, but recognising that the good God places
this treasure in the hands of his little child for him to use
when necessary, but the treasure remains God’s always.’
In a famous passage Thérèse uses a child’s
kaleidoscope to illustrate grace,
This toy aroused my admiration and I used to wonder what could produce
so pleasing a phenomenon; when one day, after serious examination,
I saw there were simply a few tiny scraps of paper and of
wool cut no matter how, and thrown here and there. I pursued
my investigation and discovered three mirrors inside the
tube: I had there the key to the problem. This was for me
the image of a great mystery. As long as our actions, even
the least of them, remain within the focus of Love, the Blessed
Trinity, which is figured by the three mirrors reflects them,
and endows them with a wondrous beauty. Jesus, looking at
us through the little lens, that is to say, as if it were
through himself, finds all our actions pleasing to him. But
if we leave the ineffable center of love, what will He see?
Mere straws…actions sullied and nothing worth.’
As a Christian from an
Evangelical background I found Thérèse’s writings amazingly refreshing. They broke
a lot of my pre-conceptions about Catholic thought and spirituality.
Indeed, she seems to have revolutionised the Catholic Church
as well. The ground swell of support for her teachings, and
the instant popularity show that the voice of the people was
one with the voice of the Church. The mighty structure of the
Catholic Church was both refreshed and challenged by her teaching.
Admitting as much, Pope Pius XI, during the canonisation process
for Thérèse proclaimed that she was ‘the greatest modern saint.’ He
said she has a ‘new mission’, proclaims a ‘new message’ and
he recognises in her a ‘new model for sanctity.’ It is no exaggeration
to say that this teenage girl hidden in a convent in a remote
part of France challenged and changed the Catholic Church.
She did so with no hint of revolution or rebellion. Her designation
as a doctor of the Church a century later confirms the Church’s
acceptance of her teachings.
In her emphasis on grace
Thérèse is a prophet
of the new found solutions between Catholics and Lutherans
on the question of salvation. In the historic document Joint
Declaration the Doctrine of Justification, signed in October
1999, both Catholics and Lutherans were able to say, ‘By grace
alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of
any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the
Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling
us to good works.’ Thérèse is one of the key teachers to bring
the Catholics to this point, and like Luther, Thérèse came
to her understandings through the Scriptures. She loved to
read and was extraordinarily well read for a child of her age
and background, but in the convent she found that extra-biblical
books simply didn’t interest her any longer. She writes, ‘If
I open a book composed by a spiritual author (even the most
beautiful, or the most touching book) I feel my heart contract
immediately and I read without understanding. Or if I do understand,
my mind comes to a standstill without the capacity of meditating.
In this helplessness, Holy Scripture and the Imitation of
Christ come to my aid. In them I find a solid and very
pure nourishment.‘ Elsewhere she writes, ‘I can find nothing
in books any more; the Gospels are enough for me. Is it not
implied for example in the words of our Lord, “Learn of me,
for I am meek and humble of heart?”’
Thérèse committed great portions of Scripture
to memory, and the novices in the convent were amazed by her
display of Scripture knowledge. She always carried a New Testament,
and in her cell she was busy compiling her own personal concordance.
Balthasar says, ‘Luther, brought face to face with Scripture,
came to conclusions that might be considered remotely parallel
to those of Thérèse: the personal certainty of salvation, the
stress upon trusting faith as opposed to ascetic practices
and other good works, the clear cut preference for New Testament
mercy as against Old Testament justice. And, in this sense,
with all due reserves having been made, the ‘little way’ can
be regarded as the Catholic answer to the demands and questions
raised by Luther.’
Thérèse’s doctrine of the little way answers
the programme outlined by the Reformers. Perhaps unknowingly
she offers an answer to Protestant spirituality. There are
many points of contact between Thérèse and the Reformers. The
rejection of justification by works; the demolition of one’s
own ideal of perfection to make room for God’s perfection in
man; the transcendent and yet personal dimensions to the act
of faith, and the insistence that faith is more than intellectual
assent to the content of Christianity. But while there are
similarities, the contrasts between Thérèse and the Reformers
are equally striking. Thérèse does not foster religious revolution,
but spiritual renewal. Most importantly, Thérèse believes perfection
is possible by God’s grace. She believes in a justification
and sanctification which are real and personal, not externally
and artificially applied. In other words, she does not allow
sin to gain so overwhelming a hold. She admits of faults, but
they are ‘faults which do not offend God’. She believes like
St John, that we are children of God and that ‘one who is born
of God cannot go on sinning because he is born of God.’ (I
Jn3.7-10) As Balthasar puts it, ’What divides Thérèse from
Luther is that the trauma of sin never entwines itself round
her soul’
This leads to another
trait in the young nun which surprised me: her zeal. Trained
to view enclosed nuns
as meek and passive creatures, Thérèse comes across as a firebrand
for God. Despite being in the Carmelite monastery she burns
with zeal to fight the good fight of faith. Throughout her
writings she proclaims her wish to be God’s warrior. For those
who regard her only as ‘the little flower’ her militant spirit
is almost shocking. Thérèse wrote poems and plays in honour
of another female French warrior--Joan of Arc. A serendipitous
photograph shows her dressed in armour to perform the part
of Joan in one of her plays. Echoing the Virgin Mary and St
Paul, and with a romantic zeal for battle, Thérèse proclaims
her mission, ‘I have put on the breastplate of the Almighty,
and he has armed me with the strength of his arms. Henceforth
no terror can wound me, for who can now divide me from his
love? By his side, I advance to the battlefield, fearing neither
fire nor steel; my enemies shall discover that I am a queen
and the bride of a King.’
Thérèse is a spiritual swashbuckler. Like a
female chevalier she declares, ‘God has granted me the grace
of being totally unafraid of war; I must do my duty, whatever
the cost.’ ‘Let us fight without ceasing, even without hope
of winning the battle for what does success matter! Let us
keep going, however exhausting the struggle may be…’ Elsewhere
she says, ‘I long to accomplish the most heroic deeds, I feel
within me the courage of the crusader. I would die on the battlefield
in defence of the Church!’ On her deathbed, like a spiritual
Cyrano de Bergerac she says, ‘I shall die with weapons in
hand!’ ‘Sanctity!’ she bravely cries, ‘it must be won at the
point of a sword!’
Her zeal for battle is
directed into her life of prayer. Once again, my pre-conception
of the enclosed Catholic
monastic life was one of detachment from evangelism and social
concern. Thérèse’s view is exactly the opposite. Her life of
prayer is a direct involvement in the spiritual battle. By
her prayers, love and sacrifice she wished to win souls for
Jesus. Repeatedly in her autobiography Thérèse proclaims her
fervent love for sinners and her desire to win souls. ‘There
is only one thing to do here below: to love Jesus, to win souls
for him so that He may be loved. Let us seize with jealous
care every least opportunity of self sacrifice. Let us refuse
him nothing!’ This reveals Thérèse’s technique of soul-winning.
Like St Paul who hopes his sacrifice will be united to Christ’s
for the good of the church, (Col.1.24) Thérèse wants her sacrifice
of love, prayer and devotion to be dedicated to the missionaries
for whom she prays daily. She wins souls by being united with
Christ and united with the souls in prayer and love. So she
writes, ‘Just as a torrent sweeps along with it unto the depths
of the sea whatever it encounters on it’s course, even so,
my Jesus, does the soul which plunges into the boundless ocean
of Your love draw after her all her treasures. Lord these treasures
are the souls it has pleased You to unite to mine.’
Thérèse was fascinated by missionary work.
She maintained an encouraging correspondence with two missionary
priests, supported them daily in prayer. and wished to go the
mission field herself. Her language is as dynamic as any revivalist
preacher, ‘I want to enlighten souls. I want to travel the
earth,’ Thérèse prays, ‘O my beloved, to preach Your name and
to set up Your glorious Cross in pagan lands. But one mission
only would not suffice for me’ would that I could at one and
the same time proclaim the Gospel all the world over, even
to the remotest of its lands. I would desire to be a missionary
not only for a few years, but to have been one from the creation
of the world and so to continue to the end of time.’
On her deathbed Thérèse said she fervently
believed every one of her desires had been fulfilled. By this
time she was taking an eternal perspective, seeing that her
hidden life would be powerfully used by God in the future.
But how was her passionate desire to be an ‘eternal missionary’ fulfilled?
Within the mystery of the Church it is no co-incidence or exaggeration
to see Thérèse’s wish to be a missionary fulfilled in that
other little saint, Teresa of Calcutta, who has been one of
the most radiant Christian witnesses in the second half of
this century. Indeed, Teresa of Calcutta chose her name in
honour of Thérèse of Lisieux. She taught all her missionaries
to follow the ‘little way’ and witnessed to the fact that her
world-wide missionary enterprise was inspired by the teenage
nun of Lisieux.
At the heart of Thérèse’s life is her personal,
fervent and loving relationship with Jesus Christ. Surrounded
by conventional Catholic piety of her day, she kicks over all
the paraphernalia of formal religion. She is accused of a florid
and sentimental style, but while she is tender and child-like,
she never allows sentimentality to get in the way of Truth.
When a sister tried to tell her ‘inspiring’ stories of St Francis
with the birds and flowers Thérèse replied, ‘I need nourishment
for my soul. I need examples of humility’ Another sister said
when Thérèse died she would be met by a company of radiant
white angels. The saint said, ‘All these images mean nothing
to me. I can only nourish myself upon the Truth.’ Confronted
with pious and well-meaning devotional sermons about the Virgin
Mary, Thérèse responded, ‘All the sermons on Mary I have heard
have left me cold…one should not relate improbable stories
about her…if a sermon on Mary is to bear fruit it must give
a genuine picture of her life, as we glimpse it in the Gospels.’ She
felt the same about elaborate formal prayers, ‘ To be heard
it is not necessary to read from a book some beautiful formula
composed for the occasion. I do not have the courage to force
myself to search out beautiful prayers in books. There are
so many of them it really gives me a headache! Each prayer
is more beautiful than the others…I say to God very simply
what I wish to say, without composing beautiful sentences and
he always understands me.’
Thérèse’s little way turns out to be radical
discipleship. With fiery zeal and uncompromising faith it takes
Christians to a point of total surrender to the One who totally
surrendered himself to the Father’s will. Thérèse demands total
conversion. ‘You cannot be half a saint!’ she proclaims, ‘You
must be a whole saint or no saint at all.’ Her ‘little way
of spiritual childhood calls for the personality to die so
the person can be re-born. As Balthasar says, ‘This zero-point,
the intersection of the Absolute, is Christ’s gift …it is the
abdication of one’s own will in favor of total obedience to
Christ.’ Thérèse does not preach her own idea or her own technique
for Christian perfection. She simply proclaims the message
of John chapter three where Christ says ‘You must be born again.’ As
Balthasar points out, ‘The little way is one way, yet
it is also the way… The love of God and one’s neighbour
contains the whole of the law, and all mysticism and asceticism,
thus this little way, which makes this love absolutely central,
can be described as the way’ for all Christians.
My journey of faith has
been influenced by many people, but among them, the little
child of Lisieux has
been one of the greatest. My experience in Lisieux brought
me into contact with one of the most extraordinary Christians
of the last century. In just twenty four years she lived an
amazing life which climaxed in 1897 when, after a terrible
illness combined with a more terrible spiritual darkness, Thérèse
died. In time she stands as a bridge between the nineteenth
and the twentieth centuries. As a child she speaks prophetically
to the grown-up sin and cynicism of our age. As a Catholic,
without even knowing it, she embraces all that is good in Protestantism.
As a prophetic soul she points forward to a new Christian unity
in which all Christians may proclaim together the simple gospel,
that we are called to be little children-- sons and daughters
of the King who are destined to live in his courts forever.
A former Evangelical, Dwight Longenecker
lives in England where he works as a freelance writer. He
is the editor of a book of conversion stories to the Catholic
Church called The Path to Rome, and
is the author of Listen My Son, a commentary on the
Rule of St Benedict for fathers. His latest book, a study
of Thérèse of Lisieux and St Benedict, will be published
in 2001.
