I was thinking about and meditating on St Therese's life the other night. She is probably the saint many Catholics of my own generation know and love the best. I was just a child when I first read her autobiography , 'Story of a Soul' and have read it many times since along with numerous other books on her life and read numerous of her conversations whilst alive and repots from many others who knew her. I had been thinking of when she entered Carmel at just 15, a child. To the vast majority of people including Catholics this would seem insane. Even way back then it seemed very, very unusual. When I was 15, I too went away to be a priest with the Passionists to a Junior Seminary and that was not so very long ago and was considered quite normal. So in this I can dance in her footsteps. I first wanted to become a priest when I was four years old and from as long as I can remember wanted with a great longing to be a saint. What happened to St Therese after she entered Carmel and set her on the Golden Road (this is I think 'The Secret of St Therese) is she came to understand is that holiness is gained by own efforts. It is a freely given gift of God. It is a grace. All gift. All given; nothing earned. We just open our arms to receive it. It is rather like a very little child who runs about with great effort to walk beside her father but keeps falling over and getting hurt and dirty. Getting nowhere and continually failing. Then the child realises he just can't do it and turns to the Father and asks Him to carry it. Then the Father with great joy ...for He has been waiting fort his request picks the child up in His Loving Arms and races, not walks homewards, showering the child with kisses as he does so. Some people think the Secret of St Therese was to do small things perfectly . But this is a Spiritual Tactic, not a Spiritual Strategy. The true Secret is abandonment to Grace. Even as a Tactic I believe it means that love will lead us to endeavour to do things to perfection rather than that by our own effort we should try to do things perfectly to prove our love.
One thing comes across so clearly from St Therese's writings is how Christ centered they and she always was. Her writings are always, always about God and the things of God. Her writings our then like a prayer, her inner gaze always turn heavenward, they never ever stray elsewhere. Her book is what it says on the tin, the inner story of a soul; of its relationship to God. Her eyes are always fixed on heaven and the things of heaven as though she could clearly see them, even though she lived her life for a long period to her death in utter inner darkness. I have found this so helpful then to read what others saw and told to complete her story. For instance her first Mother Superior appears somewhat neurotic and had the poor nuns run round regularly catching mice for her cats. There was certain tension in the Carmel about having so many of the one family in the Carmel at the one time in case Therese and her sisters ended up running the joint. It seems to me that right from the start life for the child was no bad of roses; quite the reverse. She never seems to have been treated like a child always as an adult. And remarkably this is what the young Therese wanted and thrived on. She was a very fast learner. Some of the sisters knew she was a saint before she died. Most of them did not. She coated her sanctity with a deep coat of ordinariness and outer joy, covering the very deepest suffering. So much so that the Mother Superior refused the Doctors request that she be given heavy doses of Morphine arguing that they were too expensive and that Therese was not in pain. This when actually St Therese was dying the most exquisite torment imaginable. Death from TB is just about the worst way any person can go. One remark of St Therese's really stands in my memory because it reveals so much of her inner soul . It was when she said, 'When I die I will let fall a shower of roses from heaven'. To me this implies that she both knew she was one of God's saints and that after her death she would be raised to the altars of the Church. I find this immensely comforting. That she had this inner light in her utter darkness and crucifixtion.
I didn’t know anything about her until I was about 45. I found a beautiful statue of her at a garage sale! I didn’t know she was tapping me on the shoulder. And the rest is history and she brought me to Carmel. ❤️❤️
I always thought that St Therese did not care for me. But her relics came to the US to the Carmel in Southern Maryland and my husband and I went to venerate them. Then we knew.
St Therese is a Super Saint. She is like a continual compass to God. When I walk the dog in the evening I often pass and go into a little tiny Church to her right beside the Bishop's Palace a Chapel of Rest named after her. At the back of the Chapel is a White Marble Side chapel in her name. It contains a white marble statue of her and me and the dog sit and stare at together and if no one else is there sing a few hymns. And have a conversation. But time after time I am blown away by the roses. Huge beautiful roses of so many colours, they must cost ten fortunes. Hundreds and hundreds of roses of beautiful roses. So touching. In a kind of way these flowers tell me more about the saint than any book I have read. Buried in roses.
Heidi, it’s hard to explain. I just felt that my prayers asking for her intercession were not heard. Yes, I feel that way about certain saints. St Anthony, for example. I went to the Franciscan Monastery in DC for Mass and Novena prayers a couple of times in the 1970’s. Crickets, nada. Then I moved and in 1980 or so joined St. Anthony’s parish down the street from where I lived. I met my husband in that town. We were married in St Anthony’s. My son was baptized in St Anthony’s. So sometimes “sleeper” saints are working behind the scenes. That’s how I felt about St Therese until we venerated her relics. The press was there in the Carmel chapel and the next day some of my students said they saw me on the news. At least I was in a good place when they saw me on the news
St Therese could be a Patron Saint of the Atheist or Agnostic, so terrible was her Dark Night of the Soul right up until her death. She teaches us through this that Faith is not about emotion. I do not love God because I feel like I love Him; I love because I give myself to Him. This is my last night of nine long night shifts in a row. Sometimes God felt far away. But I believe this was simply being tired. It is easy to ascribe this sense of a little inner darkness to the Spirit when it is really the body that is acting up. I love St Therese's comparison of Inner Darkness to God being like a child with a toy. Sometimes He picks the toy up and hugs it, sometimes He throws it away and forgets about it. Either way the toy is always there for the child. Carmel seems to me such an intense place. I hope she was able to get some relief for her Darkness at times. There is a story one time of a poor nun in Darkness who came to St Teresa of Avila for help. St Teresa sat her down and cooked a big steak for her ,washed down with a nice glass of wine. St Tereasa had such wonderful common sense. I love it that the Carmelites like to dance as King David did before the Ark of the Covenant.
The young fellow I am working with tonight in the hospital told me he has been feeling down in the dumps this last few days. I offered to sing him a song to cheer him up . He ran away. He has often heard my singing. Relearning Spanish once again. I really, really love to watch this one...and to sing it to myself. 'Angels of God'.
In the midst of her darkness, Padraig, Therese never strayed from charity. Her letters to the seminarian, Maurice, mostly written in the last year of her suffering with TB and the dark night, reveal the depth of her sanctity. Never was there a hint of, "Woe is me!" So as far as I know, there was no relief until the moment of her death when she saw the Lord coming to take her to Himself. She was a Carmelite par excellent. I am a wimp! She was a saint.
My dear, attentive, and faithful sister! Tomorrow is the actual day of her death! “Upon my death I will let fall a shower of roses; I wish to spend my heaven in doing good upon the earth.” Every once in awhile I remind her of my address down here!
