The Roman Catholic Church begins the month of October, which is a Marian month of the Holy Rosary, by honoring the exemplary life of St. Therese of the Little Child Jesus, a French Carmelite sister in Lisieux, and the youngest Doctor of the Church.
It is not that she has a Ph.D. in theology, Therese
never attended a college. It is not that she has written heavy-weight
theological books, like St. Augustine of Hippo’s De Trinitate and St.
Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, but her personal writings, such as L'histoire
D'une Ame (The Story of a Soul), that offers us deep mystical spiritual insights
to enrich our faith in Christ.
L'histoire D'une Ame is
her autobiography, in which she describes herself as a little child of Jesus
and a little flower in God’s garden. She also candidly confesses her true love
in God. Therese writes:
My God, Thou knowest that I have ever
desired to love Thee alone. It has been my only ambition. Thy love has gone
before me, even from the days of my childhood. It has grown with my growth, and
now it is an abyss whose depths I cannot fathom.
Love attracts love; mine darts towards
Thee, and would fain make the abyss brim over, but alas! it is not even as a
dewdrop in the ocean. To love Thee as Thou lovest me, I must make Thy Love mine
own. Thus alone can I find rest. O my Jesus, it seems to me that Thou couldst
not have overwhelmed a soul with more love than Thou hast poured out on mine,
and that is why I dare ask Thee to love those Thou hast given me, even as Thou
lovest me. L'histoire D'une Ame,
XI
Therese is fervently in love with God, because she knows that she enjoys being nursed by God’s love, as to be breast fed by His tender love, reflected in the First Reading (Isaiah 66:10-14c). She sees herself as a nursling of God, knowing that her existence is thanks to His loving providence. For this, Therese devoted herself to Eucharistic Adoration.
In fact, it is God’s love being internalized in her that drove her vocation.
Theresa writes
Considering the mystical body of the Church I had not recognized myself in any of the members described by Saint Paul, or rather I desired to see myself in them all. Charity gave me the key to my vocation. I understood that if the Church had a body composed of different members, the most necessary and most noble of all could not be lacking to it, and so I understood that the Church had a Heart, and that this Heart was burning with love. I understood it was love alone that made the Church’s members act, that if Love ever became extinct, apostles would not preach the Gospel and martyrs would not shed their blood. I understood that Love comprised all vocations, that love was everything, that it embraced all times and places… in a word: that it was eternal! Then, in the excess of my delirious joy, I cried out: O Jesus, my Love... my vocation, at last I have found it… my vocation is Love! Yes, I have found my place in the Church, and it is you, O my God, who have given me this place; in the heart of the Church, my Mother, I shall be Love. Thus I shall be everything, and thus my dream will be realized. Manuscript B, 3
Therese’s love, which is God’s love for her
internalized in her, manifests in her caritas, through her offering of herself
as a living sacrifice (Romans12:1). And as she indicates above, the caritas
that drives her vocation reflects Paul’s description of love as an expression
of selflessness and humility (i.e. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8). And this is further addressed
by C.S. Lewis in his Screwtape Letters.
In fact, because of her child-like humility, Therese
was able to receive and internalize God’s love, turning it into her love, offering
herself to God’s disposal for the Church, as a living sacrifice. Without
humility, we cannot receive and offer love. One important teaching that we can
receive from this youngest Doctor of the Church, St. Therese of the Little
Child Jesus is that we are called to be humble so that we receive God’s love
for its results, and it is to offer ourselves as living sacrifices for God’s
will to be done in Christ’s name. For Therese, anything that only benefits her
but nobody else is against caritas. And self-interest cannot let God’s
love manifest as one’s caritas. This is why she remains to be a little
child of God, the Little Child of Jesus, blooming as a little flower in God’s
beautiful garden. And such humility of Therese is reflected in Jesus’ words in
the Gospel Reading (Matthew 18:1-4).
Jesus says:
Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and
become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles
himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever
receives one child such as this in my name receives me
(Matthew 18:3-5).
Theresa writes:
I hope, with God’s help, to be of use to
even more than two missionaries. I pray for all, not forgetting our Priests at
home, whose ministry is quite as difficult as that of the missionary preaching
to the heathen. . . . In a word, I wish to be a true daughter of the Church,
like our holy Mother St. Teresa, and pray for all the intentions of Christ’s
Vicar. That is the one great aim of my life. But just as I should have had a
special interest in my little brothers had they lived, and that, without neglecting
the general interests of the Church, so now, I unite myself in a special way to
the new brothers whom Jesus has given me. All that I possess is theirs also.
God is too good to give by halves; He is so rich that He gives me all I ask
for, even though I do not lose myself in lengthy enumerations. As I have two
brothers and my little sisters, the novices, the days would be too short were I
to ask in detail for the needs of each soul, and I fear I might forget
something important. Simple souls cannot understand complicated methods, and,
as I am one of their number, Our Lord has inspired me with a very simple way of
fulfilling my obligations. L'histoire D'une Ame, XI
When Jesus said, “I give praise to you, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the
wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike (Matthew
11:25)”, he was referring to a humble person, like St. Therese, as the childlike,
as he was also referring likewise, when he said, “children”(Matthew
18:3).
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