From the Cliffs of Dover we cross the English Channel to a town west-northwest of Paris. Remember on the 2nd day of the novena I mentioned a Jesuit psychologist who had made the assertion that St John Baptist Mary Vianney was an idiot. Today we shall get acquainted with a person whom the same Jesuit psychologist called a neurotic: St Thérèse d’Enfant Jesus otherwise known as St Thérèse de Lisieux.Who was she and in the line-up of saints who were priests, why she? The answer is after the “no need to re-invent the wheel” section, that is, after I have given a synopsis of her life—easily accessible through the internet.
Thérèse was born in France in 1873. Both her parents were holy and their idea of marriage was celibacy until told otherwise by a priest. They went on to have 9 children. Only 5 survived. Thérèse was the youngest. Her mother died when she was young and her eldest sister Pauline played “mother” to her for a few years. When Pauline joined the Carmelite it affected Thérèse greatly. She took ill but recovered because in her prayer she saw Mary smiled at her. When she refused to divulge more information of the alleged apparition, they thought her lying. Two other sisters, Marie and Leonie, also entered religious life, a Carmelite and a Poor Clare respectively. She was left with her last sister Celine and her father. She was spoilt to the point that she thought making her bed was a great favour to her father.
She was a sensitive child and she cried at the slightest criticism. She wanted to join the Carmelites but the superior refused to take her because she was considered too young. She went to the Bishop but he too refused her request. To take her mind off the idea, both Celine and her father brought her on a pilgrimage to Rome.
There at a general audience with the Pope, even though forbidden to speak, she took the chance to ask the Pope. She had to be carried out by two guards. At 15, she was allowed to join Pauline and Marie. In the convent, all romantic ideas of religious life evaporated.
There began a time of suffering when she experienced such dryness in prayer and yet there was this reaching out in her that yearned to perform great deeds for God. But, she knew the restrictions imposed by a cloistered life. This may explain why she was considered to be neurotic. How to love despite the constraints of the cloister? “Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love." These little sacrifices cost her more than bigger ones, for these went unrecognised by others. When Pauline was elected prioress, she asked Thérèse for the ultimate sacrifice. Three sisters in a convent gave rise to fear of domination by the Martin family. So, Thérèse remained a novice, in order to allay the fears of the others that the three sisters would push everyone else around. She would never become a fully professed nun and that meant she would always have to ask permission for everything she did. [Later Celine also joined and four sisters in a convent constituted a fifth of the population.]
e always wanted to be a saint but she found herself short when compared to the saints. She was not discouraged: “God would not make me wish for something impossible and so, in spite of my littleness, I can aim at being a saint. It is impossible for me to grow bigger, so I put up with myself as I am, with all my countless faults. But I will look for some means of going to heaven by a little way which is very short and very straight, a little way that is quite new”.
At times she expressed her desire to be a priest, a martyr, a crusader etc. But, in the end, she saw charity as the key to her vocation. “I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was burning with love. 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!"
In 1896, she coughed up blood but kept working without telling anyone until she became so sick a year later that everyone knew it. Her pain was so great that she said that if she had not had faith she would have taken her own life without hesitation. But she tried to remain smiling and cheerful—and succeeded so well that some thought she was only pretending to be ill. She was famous for this quote which the Catechism of the Catholic Church cites in teaching on the Communion of Saints and on why we can ask the Saints to intercede for us. "I will return," she said. "My heaven will be spent doing good on earth". She died at the age of 24 years old. After she died, her writings were put together and sent to other convents. Thérèse's "little way" of trusting in Jesus to make her holy and relying on small daily sacrifices instead of great deeds appealed to the thousands of Catholics and others who were trying to find holiness in ordinary lives. By 1925 she was canonised barely 28 years after her death.
Why St Thérèse? I have included her here for two reasons. First, it was briefly mentioned earlier that she wanted to be a priest. This is not the reason why she has been included in the novena simply because she had expressed also her desire, apart from a crusader and a martyr, to be an apostle, a doctor and a fighter. Her desire for priesthood was an expression of her devotion to Christ present in the Blessed Sacrament. “I want to be a priest. How lovingly I would carry You in my hands when You came down from heaven at my call. How lovingly I would bestow You on men's souls. And yet, with all this desire to be a priest, I've nothing but admiration and envy for the humility of St. Francis. I would willingly imitate him in refusing the honour of the priesthood”.
Secondly, her inclusion is relevant because she is representative of what life truly is for so many of us. Today, the definition of meaning—as in a meaningful life—is so skewed that meaning is perhaps closer to excitement when in reality meaning is to be found in the mundane—the cooking of a meal unappreciated by husband and children and whose comments, if at all, are usually negative; the changing of diapers so soon after the last one; the daily grind of attending to annoyed clients or customers. She has shown us that nothing is too insignificant for the life of grace. This life of grace is necessary to support the mission of the Church.
She is the Patroness of the Missions not because she gallivanted throughout the world but because of her special love for the missions, and the prayers and letters she gave in support of priest-missionaries. All sacrifices embraced willingly become the merits to be applied for the goodness of the Body of Christ—a reminder to all of us who feel we contribute nothing; a reminder that it is the little things that keep God's kingdom growing. She prayed for priests and she invites everyone to do so: "O Jesus, eternal Priest, keep your priests within the shelter of Your Sacred Heart, where none may touch them. Keep unstained their anointed hands, which daily touch Your Sacred Body. Keep unsullied their lips, daily purpled with Your Precious Blood. Keep pure and unearthly their hearts, sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood. Let Your holy love surround them and shield them from the world's contagion. Bless their labours with abundant fruit and may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and consolation here and in heaven their beautiful and everlasting crown. Amen".
In summary, her entire Carmelite vocation was closely linked to the priesthood as she consecrated her life to priests, to be "the apostle of the apostles." She embraced the vocation of praying for the spiritual renewal and the mission of priests even as she understood the human weakness and sinfulness of priests. Let me read to you something I got off the internet.
In the "Story of a Soul" we read how Thérèse understood the vocation of Carmel: “I lived in the company of many saintly priests for a month and I learned that, although their dignity raises them above the angels, they are nevertheless weak and fragile men. If holy priests, whom Jesus in His gospel calls ‘the salt of the earth’, show in their conduct their extreme need for prayers, what is to be said of those who are tepid? Didn't Jesus say too: ‘If the salt loses its savour, wherewith will it be salted?’. How beautiful is the vocation which has as its aim the preservation of the salt destined for souls! This is Carmel's vocation since the sole purpose of our prayers and sacrifices is to be the apostle of the apostles. We are to pray for them while they are preaching to souls, through their words and especially through their examples". (Story of a Soul, tr. John Clarke, O.C.D. p.122).
Thérèse never lost faith that the priesthood could be as Jesus envisioned it. And she prayed for priests not for their own sake, but for the sake of those God called them to serve: "Our mission as Carmelites is to form evangelical workers who will save thousands of souls whose mothers we shall be”.
In the Year for Priests, so much prayer is needed so that priests may fulfil their vocation. Thérèse wrote this to her sister Celine: "Let us convert souls. We must form many priests who love Jesus and who handle Him with the same tenderness with which Mary handled Him in His cradle". Through your sacrifices and prayers, you are united with Thérèse, the Patroness of the Missions. So, do not underestimate yourselves.
As an aside, do you know that both her parents—Louis and Marie Martin--have been beatified? This shows how important the role of parents is in the nurturing of vocations. Their beatification is a challenge to a particular schizophrenia in our thinking. Often we excuse our children when they are unruly. The usual excuse given is: "They are just children". But, whenever a child shows a whiff of prodigy-like characteristic, parents do not hesitate subjecting them to the disciplines of music, arts etc. They are never too young to be a child-prodigy. However, when it comes to Church, they are just too young to behave and they have to be fed, entertained, and etc. Schizophrenia!!
